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ALFRED AYRES AS SHYLOCK. 

(AFTER WILLIAM EDGAR MARSHALL'S PAINTING.) 

Shylock, after the loss of his daughter, his jew- 
els and his ducats, goes through the streets half 
crazed, bewailing his misfortunes, when suddenly 
he is halted by Solanio with : How, now Shylock? 



The essentials 



OF 



ELOCUTION 

BY 

ALFRED AYRES 

AUTHOR OF "THE ORTHOEPIST," " THE VERBALIST," 
"THE MENTOR," "ACTING AND ACTORS," ETC. 

NEW AND MUCH ENLARGED EDITION •'"' 



Art is the perfection of nature. — Sir Thomas Browne 
The perfection of art is to conceal art. — Quintilian 




FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

1897 



7H*» 



*» 



i 

i«i7 



Copyright 1886, by 

FUNK & W AGNAILS. 

1897, by 

FUNK & WAGNAUS COMPANY. 



Printed in the United States, America. 
All rights reserved. 



PREFACE. 



This is the shortest treatise on the Art of 
Reading that has ever been written in the 
English language ; yet, short as it is, it is of 
more practical value than are all the others — 
which is not saying much in its praise, for all 
the others are of no practical value whatever. 

The mode of procedure herein recom- 
mended, in order to become skilled in elocu- 
tion, is wholly unlike anything that has 
hitherto found its way into print. Yet what 
is here is older than the oldest of the vener- 
able " systems M that have come down to us 
from former generations, for what is here 
dates back to the time when men began to 
exchange ideas by means of a spoken lan- 
guage. Then, as ever, the sensible man — 
spoke he his own language or that of another 
— spoke naturally, and not as the elocution of 
the books, and of most teachers of the art, 
would have us speak, for that tends to make 
only bow-wowers and sing-songers. 

Alfred Ayres. 

New York, March, 1886. 



NOTE. 

It has been intimated that this little book 
owes its success to the exceeding modesty of 
its preface. I do not think so ; I think it 
owes its success to the fact that it is just the 
sort of book its preface says it is. 

The matter I have added — An Essay on 
Pulpit Elocution, A Plea for the Intellectual 
in Elocution, The Pause — Its Importance, and 
A Critical Analysis of Canon Fleming's read- 
ing of certain passages in Shakespeare — wiil 
make the book much more instructive, pro- 
vided the student take the trouble to decide 
how far I am right in criticizing the learned 
Canon. These pages offer such a field for the 
practice of mental gymnastics as is seldom 
met with. Elocutionists can not, I am con- 
fident, be better employed than in studying 
them. 

Alfred Ayres. 

New York, June, 1897. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

The Essentials of Elocution . .... 5 

Additional 28 

Deportment 44 

Pulpit Elocution 47 

A Plea for the Intellectual in Elocu- 
tion . . . 57 

The Pause — Its Importance . . .... 73 

Studies in Emphasis ......... 81 



THE 



ESSENTIALS OF ELOCUTION. 



Elocution is the art of speaking lan- 
guage so as to make the thought it ex- 
presses clear and impressive. 

This is best done by speaking the lan- 
guage as we should speak it if the 
thought were ours, and the language 
came to us as we give it utterance. 

If the thought were ours, and we 
extemporized the language to express it, 
we should never fail to speak with " good 
accent and good discretion ; " we should 
never fail to speak naturally and intel- 
ligently, and consequently impressively. 

If this is true — and who will question 
it ? — then the first, the most important 



6 THE ESSENTIALS 

thing to be attended to by the reader is 
to make himself acquainted with the 
authors thought. If he does not do this, 
and do it thoroughly too, good reading 
is impossible — ay, though he may be the 
most learned of the learned in orotunds, 
sostenutos, whispers and half-whispers, 
monotones, basilar tones, and guttural 
tones, high pitches, middle pitches, low 
pitches, and all the rest of that old trum- 
pery that has made many a noisy, stilted 
reader, but never an intelligent, agreeable 
one. He that understands and appreci- 
ates his author will instinctively know 
what tone to read him in ; a knowledge 
of gutturals and basilars, of pitches and 
whispers, will help him not a whit. This 
complicated old machinery does not, 
never has, and never will make anything 
but mechanical readers — readers that, in- 
stead of being occupied with the thoughts 
of their authors, are occupied with the 
sound of their own voices, which is fatal 



OF ELOCUTION. J 

to the object the reader has in view — 
that of interesting his auditors. 

Opening at random a treatise recently 
published entitled "Philosophic Elocu- 
tion," I find in the chapter headed 
" Qualities of Voice" the following : " It 
[the aspirate] is an impure quality, akin 
to the guttural and whisper, coming as 
it were between them, and next in at- 
tenuated quality to the latter. It means, 
properly, ' sound emitted in rough breath- 
ings ' or hissings, and is necessary as ex- 
pressive of violent passion. It then be- 
comes comparative excellence in the 
interpretation of hate, aversion, fear, 
anger, frenzy, horror, and the like pas- 
sions. Where these rage intensely the 
aspirate added to the guttural, still fur- 
ther corrupting and vitiating the orotund 
or fundamental voice, gives thereto that 
vicious, fiendish character expressive of 
dire revenge and destructiveness, which 
are otherwise inexpressible. This quality 



8 THE ESSENTIALS 

of voice may be created as follows: 
Raise the tongue at the root, high 
toward the palate, obstructing as much 
as possible the passage ; contract and 
close the glottis still more than in gut- 
tural tones ; make strong effort to ob- 
struct the egress of air, while with strong- 
est pressure of abdominal dorsal and pec- 
toral muscles it is forced out through the 
closed glottis and obstructed passage. 
Thus, while uttering the words, there will 
be an escape of air which is not converted 
into speech, but, driven out with utmost 
force, accompanies it with harsh and hiss- 
ing sound. This is the aspirate as used 
in the interpretation of the malignant 
passions." 

It is strange that intelligent persons 
can be persuaded to believe that this 
kind of " philosophy " ever has assisted 
any one to become a reader ! It is this 
kind of philosophy that has justly brought 
the professional elocutionist into great 



OF ELOCUTION. 9 

disrepute with the members of the dra- 
matic profession, who will tell you that 
they have never seen a student of elocu- 
tion that could act, that they are always 
unnatural, and consequently unsympa- 
thetic, and yet the facts are : 

1 st. There can be no good acting with- 
out good elocution. 

2d. Without much study, and in the 
right direction, there can be no good 
elocution. 

3d. There is no art that can be taught 
with more success than elocution. 

The actor himself becomes a student 
of elocution the moment he asks himself 
how a single sentence should be spoken. 
Elocution teachers, as a class, undoubt- 
edly do more harm than good ; their 
teaching is commonly much worse than 
no teaching at all, but that is not the 
fault of the art. 

Reading is a difficult art, far more dif- 
ficult than most persons imagine. There 



IO THE ESSENTIALS 

is no art for which a natural aptitude is 
more necessary. There are many good 
musicians to one good reader, and many 
good judges of music to one good judge 
of reading. In the reader sound and 
fury are accepted, by most persons, as 
art, and are applauded accordingly. I 
have heard but two readers — three, if I 
count Fanny Kemble — that I should be 
willing to put in the very first rank. 
These two were Mr. Edwin Forrest and 
Miss Charlotte Cushman. There is, as 
far as I know, no reader now before the 
public to be compared with them. Of 
course I have not heard them all, and, 
then, opinions differ. Neither Mr. For- 
rest nor Miss Cushman ever left anything 
to chance, to inspiration, that could be 
settled beforehand — not an emphasis, 
not an inflection, not a pause. All was 
carefully considered, and for everything 
they did they had a reason. 

I would walk farther and give more 



OF ELOCUTION. II 

to hear any one read Hamlet's solilo- 
quy on death as Mr. Forrest read it, 
than I would to see any living Amer- 
ican actor play his whole repertory ; and 
I would walk farther and give more to 
hear any one read the part of Queen 
Catherine in Henry VIII. as MissCush- 
man read it, than I would to see in her 
best part an actress that should embody 
all the excellencies of all the American 
actresses of to-day. Mr. Forrest and 
Miss Cushman were great players, and 
what made them great was their won- 
derful powers as readers, as elocutionists. 
In all else that goes to make the actor 
they have had many a peer. They were 
intellectual players, scholarly players, 
players that were far beyond the appre- 
ciation of the great majority of those that 
saw them. This lack of contemporary 
appreciation was especially true of the 
popular estimate of Mr. Forrest, whom 
the million were inclined to think a phys- 



12 THE ESSENTIALS 

ical rather than an intellectual actor. 
Both Forrest and Cushman were close 
and successful students of Nature, and 
their delivery had in it none of the mere 
noise and circumstance of declamation. 
Their minds were ever occupied with 
the thought, the sentiment and spirit of 
their author, never with the tones they 
employed. They knew that if they suc- 
ceeded in mastering their author, the 
time, the tone, the pitch, and the force 
best suited to the rendering of him would 
all take care of themselves. They knew 
that any other course of procedure 
would result in making their delivery 
mechanical, automatic and soulless, in- 
stead of spontaneous, realistic and im- 
pressive. 

But I would not be understood to in- 
timate that it is necessary merely to un- 
derstand an author in order to read him 
well ; I say only that a thorough study 
of the language to be read is the first 



OF ELOCUTION. I 3 

step to be taken, and that what follows is 
often comparatively easy.* But as there 
is, when one is not ill, a vast difference 
between being well and being well, so 
there is a vast difference between com- 
prehending an author and comprehend- 
ing him. Most persons of any culture 
think they comprehend Shakspeare, yet 
there is quite as much difference in their 
appreciation of him as there is in their 
appreciation of, say the paintings of the 
great masters. How many of the read- 
ers of " The Merchant of Venice" — to 
take a very simple example — discover in 
Portia's speech in the fourth act, begin- 
ning " Tarry, Jew, the law hath yet 
another hold on you," that the law is 
specially severe when an alien attempts 

* I assume that the student of elocution knows his moth- 
er tongue sufficiently well to articulate it distinctly, and 
to pronounce it according to some recognized authority. 
Studies in articulation and pronunciation are properly 
preparatory to the study of elocution, as an art, rathef 
than a part of it. 



14 THE ESSENTIALS 

the life of a citizen, and would so empha- 
size the language as to bring out this 
thought ? Very few, indeed, as I know 
by observation. I once knew an elocu- 
tionist (!) that for years had been getting 
$5 an hour for teaching, and had gone 
over this speech again and again without 
discovering this peculiarity of the Vene- 
tian law, and, of course, without making 
it appear in the reading. 

Elocution cannot be learned from 
books, any better than painting or sculpt- 
ure can. No treatise on the art, no mat- 
ter how voluminous it is, can do much 
more than give the learner a few hints to 
set him thinking and observing. After 
having carefully studied the language to 
be read — supposing that its meaning is 
not obvious — one should proceed to de- 
termine how it should be spoken in 
order to make the meaning clear : 

i st. Which are the words that should 
be emphasized. 



OF ELOCUTION. I 5 

2d. Which the clauses that, being 
comparatively unimportant, should be 
lightly touched — slurred. 

3d. Where the voice should be kept 
up, and where allowed to take the falling 
inflection. 

4th. Where the pauses should be 
made, the longest of which are always 
made between the thoughts. 

The tone, I insist, will take care of it- 
self. Herein he that knows what he is 
reading about, he that appreciates his 
author, will never fail. 

In order to execute well, practice, as 
a matter of course, is necessary, and a 
great deal of practice, too. In practising 
remember : 

1 st. To be chary of emphasis. Never 
emphasize a word unless you think the 
sense demands it. Emphasis being only 
relative stress, over-emphasis defeats its 
object. Do nothing without a reason. 
Spare the zfs, the ands, and the hits. 



1 6 THE ESSENTIALS 

Do not come down on them as though 
you would annihilate them, after the fash- 
ion of many readers. The particles should 
generally be touched lightly. 

2d. That in slurring parenthetic clauses 
— clauses that tell how, when, where, 
etc. — we make a slight pause before and 
after them, and speak them somewhat 
more rapidly and less forcibly than the 
rest of the text. Examples : 

" Speak the speech — I pray you — as I 
pronounced it to you." 

" The censure of the which one must 
— in your allowance — overweigh a whole 
theatre of others." 

" This book — as you see by the title 
— is a pronouncing manual." 

So, too, must the particles and the 
pronouns, as a rule, be touched lightly, 
after the manner of good offhand speak- 
ers, and of cultivated persons in conver- 
sation, except when the sense requires 
them to be emphatic. Giving the name 



OF ELOCUTION. ij 

sound to the particles and pronouns 
— which necessitates the distinct aspi- 
ration of the lis of the pronouns, a 
thing that we hear an occasional Eng- 
lishman do, seemingly to make sure of 
not being taken for a cockney — makes 
one's utterance stilted, pedantic and self- 
conscious. Herein some of our Eng- 
lish actors are great offenders. There is 
as much difference between the proper 
sound to give to the pronouns and the 
particles in speaking and reading and their 
name sounds as there is between the name 
sound of the and the sound we usually 
give it in conversation. The primary 
object of reading, of reciting, and of de- 
claiming is not to make our listeners 
understand the words, but to make them 
comprehend the thoughts the words ex- 
press. The reader that sets himself the 
task of sending every syllable to the ut- 
termost corners of the house is sure to 
be stilted, automatic, unnatural, and con- 



1 8 THE ESSENTIALS 

sequently uninteresting. If every syl- 
lable reaches, so much the better, but 
they must be sent without apparent 
effort. Good taste limits clearness of 
articulation as well as everything else. 
Overdoing in utterance, as in manners, 
is always far more objectionable than 
underdoing, as nothing else is so objec- 
tionable as self-consciousness and affec- 
tation. An evident effort to be fine is a 
distinguishing characteristic of the under- 
bred and the half-schooled. 

3d. That great care should be taken not 
to let the voice die out, as many readers 
and players do, at the end of sentences 
and as the breath leaves the lungs. No 
other one thing is so destructive to the 
sense, except the old-fashioned practice 
of varying the tones in order to avoid 
being monotonous — a reproach that will 
never be made an intelligent reader that 
is intent upon keeping his auditors occu- 
pied with the thought of his author. Then 



OF ELOCUTION, 19 

the tones will change spontaneously. 
If the sentiment does not change them 
let them remain unchanged. If the read- 
er allows himself to be occupied with 
the tones of his voice, the listener will do 
likewise, and will soon become wearied. 
This sing-song manner of delivery per- 
vades nearly the whole German stage. 
The German actor, find him where you 
will, never, by any chance, speaks a sen- 
tence in a natural tone, save when he 
plays low-comedy parts. No one could 
be more natural than he when he per- 
sonates a comic tinker or a comic cob- 
bler ; but when he attempts the persona- 
tion of a man of the better sort his 
delivery is artificial in the extreme. Nor 
need we hunt far to find, even in high 
places, on our own stage those that sin 
in this direction quite as grievously as 
the Germans do. This is a style of 
elocution that costs little labor, and 
makes small demands on the intelligence. 



20 THE ESSENTIALS 

4th. That in endeavoring to be natu- 
ral one must be careful not to degen- 
erate into the commonplace. Under- 
doing is always worse than overdoing. 
The worst of faults is tameness. The 
happy mean between the declamatory 
and the commonplace is often not easy 
to find. This is the reason that we so 
rarely hear certain passages in popular 
plays satisfactorily spoken — Hamlet's 
advice to the players, for example. How 
beautifully, how naturally, and yet with 
what princely dignity Mr. Forrest used 
to speak these speeches ! 

5th. To be deliberate, to take time. 
But let your deliberation appear in the 
time you consume with your pauses — 
which, remember, when of much length, 
must be between the thoughts — and 
not in any drawling or dwelling on the 
words, for they must come clean-cut 
and sharply defined. Nothing else does 
more to make one's reading natural and 



OF ELOCUTION. 21 

realistic than the proper distribution 01 
time. In extemporizing we pause in- 
stinctively : to give the listener time to 
comprehend, and to prepare our next 
thought for presentation. 

6th. That in speaking the language of 
others we should seem to be finding the 
thought and the language as we go along. 
I may say here that no one, no matter 
who, can do himself full justice in speak- 
ing the language of another unless he 
is as familiar with it as he is with his 
A B C's. He must know the language 
so thoroughly that it costs him no 
effort whatever to recall it. 

7th. Not to commit a selection to 
memory until, by going over it men- 
tally, you are able to read it mentally 
to your satisfactioa To memorize a 
selection and then study the reading 
is " to put the cart before the horse." 
First decide upon the form of the utter- 
ance, then, as you memorize, you will 



2 2 THE ESSENTIALS 

memorize the form as well as the words. 
Salvini is said to have studied King 
Lear six years before he made any 
effort to commit the part to memory. 

8th. That untutored readers are al- 
most certain to strike a higher key in 
reading than that of their ordinary tone. 
This is a fault that a little attention will, 
in most cases, readily correct. An easy 
way to make sure of striking a natural 
tone is to preface what one is about to 
read with one or two extemporaneous 
sentences, and then to go directly from 
one's own language to that of the au- 
thor. For example, thus: If you will 
listen I will read, for your edification, I 
hope, some verses by Alfred Tennyson. 
They are entitled " Recollections of the 
Arabian Nights," and begin by saying 
that : 

" When the breeze of a joyful dawn 
blew free," etc. Nothing is easier than 
in this way to begin in the tone one 



OF ELOCUTION. 23 

habitually speaks in. Then, after a little 
practice, one can forego the preface. 

9th. To take breath often, very often, 
and to take it inaudibly. Leave gasp- 
ing to " barn - stormers " and prayer- 
meeting exhorters. Never speak with- 
out having the lungs well filled. In 
taking breath and in speaking use the 
muscles of the chest as little as possible ; 
make, if you can, the diaphragm and 
abdominal muscles — the belly — do all 
the work. Practice will make this easy, 
and will immensely increase the so- 
called lung power for both momentary 
and continued effort. If a speaker from 
nervousness loses his voice he has only 
" to pull himself together," take a deep, 
full breath, and speak from the abdo- 
men, to find his voice instantly return 
to him. In exercising the voice with 
the view of strengthening it, it is not 
necessary to make much sound, but 
only to utter the words, or the vowels 



24 THE ESSENTIALS 

only, with intensity. This can be done 
without disturbing a neighbor in an ad- 
joining room. Voice is as much the re- 
sult of muscular effort as is the turning 
of somersaults, and one should not ex- 
pect to have the muscles with which one 
produces it well hardened and under 
proper control with less than at least two 
years' constant practice. No other exer- 
cise is more, if equally, invigorating. It 
is not necessary to have much voice in 
order to read well. A fragile person 
with a weak voice, if it is under control, 
might be very artistic; but a strong 
voice and great strength are necessary in 
order to be effective, especially in deal- 
ing with pathos or passion. 

Advanced pupils in schools can com- 
monly be taught with considerable suc- 
cess to read naturally by giving them a 
selection to familiarize themselves with 
— a short, simple story, for example — and 



OF ELOCUTION. 25 

then asking them, first, to give the sub- 
stance of the selection in their own lan- 
guage, and afterward the selection in the 
language of its author. As soon as the 
pupil begins to speak (or to read) in a 
high tone or unnaturally he should be 
stopped, with the question : " What did 
you say this is about?" which will bring 
him back to a natural tone. Then, after 
he has extemporized a few sentences, he 
should be directed to return to the lan- 
guage of the book. One hour of this 
kind of drill will accomplish more than 
a whole term of wrestling with high 
pitches, low pitches, basilars, gutturals, 
orotunds, and sostenutos. 

If these hints suffice to make the stu 
dent of elocution think and observe, they 
do about all that any treatise can do in the 
way of making readers. He that would 
acquire the art of speaking the language 
set down for him in an intelligent and 



26 THE ESSENTIALS 

natural manner should study the manner 
of good extemporaneous speakers and 
of people in earnest conversation. He 
should observe how they emphasize-how 
they slur the unimportant, reserving their 
breath and strength for the important — 
and how they pause. Let him study him- 
self, too, as well as others, especially if his 
manner is naturally earnest and animated. 
Whatever is even akin to a drawling, a 
whining, an intoning, or a canting manner 
of speaking he cannot too studiously shun. 
Natural tones are the tones of truth and 
honesty, of good sense and good taste. 
It is with them only that the understand- 
ing is successfully addressed ; with them 
only that we can arouse and keep awake 
the intelligence of the listener, which 
is the object we always have in view, 
whether we speak our own language or 
that of another. 

The only serious objection, I believe, 



OF ELOCUTION. 27 

to the course I recommend is that it 
offers comparatively little opportunity 
for the professor to impress his pupils, 
and through them the neighborhood, 
with his profundity. In natural, com- 
mon-sense processes there is rarely any- 
thing that dazzles, never anything that 
bewilders. 



28 THE ESSENTIALS 



ADDITIONAL. 

I will indicate, as nearly as I am able, 
what I conceive to be the proper read- 
ing of Portia's great speech in the 
fourth act of " The Merchant of Venice," 
giving some of the reasons for the em- 
phasis. A careful study of this speech 
will give the student of elocution an 
idea of the course it is necessary to pur- 
sue, and of the thought required in order 
to determine how the more difficult 
authors should be read : 

~ indicates that the word it is placed 
over should be touched lightly. 

1 indicates a place where breath 
should be taken. 

The italics indicate that the word 
should be emphasized. 

Portia. — Do you confess the bond? 

Antonio.— I do. 

Portia. — Then must the Jew be merciful. 



OF ELOCUTION. 29 

Shylock. — On what compulsion must I ? Tell me 
that. 

Portia. — The quality of mercy is not strained./ 

Thoughtless readers, who comprise 
fully forty-nine in every fifty, are sure to 
make either quality or mercy \ or possibly 
both emphatic, while the thoughtful read- 
er sees that the making of either of these 
words emphatic puts a meaning into the 
line not intended. To say that " The 
quality of mercy is not strained " is to 
say that some other attribute of mercy 
is, or may be, strained — the quantity, 
for example. And to say, "The quality 
of mercy is not strained " is to say that 
the quality of something else is, or may 
be, strained. The thoughtful reader sees 
that Portia says simply this : " Mercy 
doesn't come by compulsion, it comes 
of itself, it is spontaneous," and, having 
seen this, he has no difficulty in decid- 
ing how the line should be emphasized. 

I will take occasion here to say that 



30 THE ESSENTIALS 



when one is in doubt about the empha- 
sis it is an excellent plan to express the 
thought of the author in one's own lan- 
guage, and then to transfer the emphasis 
to the language of the author ; and also 
that when one has difficulty in speaking 
the language of an author naturally, that 
it is likewise a good plan to express the 
thought in one's own language, and then 
to transfer the intonation to the author. 
In doing so, in endeavoring to be nat- 
ural, colloquial, one must be very careful 
not to degenerate into the commonplace 
— a very common fault. Of the two it 
is better to overdo than to underdo, as 
in underdoing there is great danger of 
being tame, which is the worst of faults. 

It droppeth/ as the gentle rain from heaven/ 
Upon the place beneath :/ it is twice blest: / 

The thoughtless reader, the reader 
that has no reason for what he does, but 
emphasizes in a hap-hazard fashion, is 



OF ELOCUTION. 3 1 

sure to say " twice blest," intimating by 
his emphasis that it has somewhere been 
said in the context that mercy is once 
blest, as without this statement his 
emphasis would not be justified. We 
should say of a man that has been twice 
imprisoned, in simply stating the fact : 
" He has been twice imprisoned /" but if 
we were answering the question, " Has 
he not been imprisoned ?" we should 
instinctively say : u Yes, he has been 
twice imprisoned." In emphasis, as in 
grammar, it is always the sense that 
determines. 

It blesseth him that gives/ and him that takes :/ 

Strangely enough, " him that gives and 
him that takes " is the hap-hazard way 
of reading this line. If the language 
were, "The man that gives and the man 
that receives," no one would err in read- 
ing it. 

'Tis mightiest/ in the mightiest]/ it becomes 



32 



THE ESSENTIALS 



Many thoughtful readers say, " Might- 
iest in the mightiest," as they say, " Heart 
<?/ hearts." Their reasons for so doing 
have always seemed to me valueless. 
This emphasis seems to me absurd. Por- 
tia simply says that even among the 
mightiest mercy is still the mightiest. 
In this sentence among is the word that 
should receive the stress, if in Shak- 
speare's mode of expressing the thought 
in should receive it. 

The throned monarch/ better than his crown :/ 

This is, probably, the line of the whole 
speech with regard to which opinions 
most differ. Many good readers — among 
them my learned friend, Professor J. B. 
Roberts, of Philadelphia — insist that 
better is much the most emphatic word. 
They say, "All monarchs have crowns." 
And if they have ! If it had been any- 
where said that mercy becomes the 
throned monarch, as well as his crown, 



OF ELOCUTION. 33 

then we should say properly that it 
becomes him better than his crown ; but 
this is nowhere said. Portia says that 
the most exalted of men are more adorn- 
ed by mercy than they are even by their 
crowns. It is not more incorrect to say, 
" Fame is better than riches," than it is to 
say, "It becomes the throned monarch 
better than his crown." Of the three 
words crown is perhaps a little the most, 
and better is certainly the least emphatic. 

His sceptre/ shows the force of temporal power,/ 

The attribute to awe / and majesty,/ 

Wherein doth sit the dread /and fear of kings ;/ 

Care should be taken not to run awe 
and majesty and dread and fear to- 
gether, as it greatly lessens the effect 

But mercy/ is above/ the sceptred sway ;/ 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings./ 

The pronoun it in this line, as will 
be seen, stands in direct contradistinc- 
tion to temporal power (its antecedent 



34 THE ESSENTIALS 

being mercy), which is enthroned in the 
sceptre ; hence the sense demands that 
it should be emphasized ; but, owing to 
the shortness of the vowel sound, there is 
something unpleasant to the ear in that 
reading. Substitute that in the place of 
it, and the effect of the emphasis is very 
different. 

It is an attribute to God/ Himself ;/ 
And earthly power /doth then show likest God's/ 
When mercy / seasons justice. / Therefore, Jew,/ 
Though justice be thy plea,/ consider this J 
That, in the course of justice ',/ none of us/ 

Not " in the course of justice," as many 
thoughtless readers would have it. The 
words the course 0/ are not at all neces- 
sary to the sense ; the line is fully as 
forcible without them. 

Should see salvation./ We do pray/ for mercy ;/ 
And that same prayer/ doth teach us all/ to render 
The deeds of mercy./ I have spoke thus much,/ 

Not " I have spoke thus much," which 
is equivalent to saying, " I have not 
chanted it nor sung it." 



OF ELOCUTION. 35 

To mitigate the justice I of thy plea ;/ 

Which,/ if thou follow J this strict court of Venice/ 

See what has been said about the slur- 
ring of parenthetic clauses. 

Must needs give sentence/ * gainst/ the merchant there. 

The voice should be kept well up to 
the very end of the last line, in order to 
make the proper climax. 

As for the measure, in reading verse, 
especially blank-verse, it is generally bet- 
ter to leave it to take care of itself. The 
thought is the thing ; it is with that that 
we catch and hold the attention of the 
listener. 

In the following speeches of Shylock 
I mark the pronouns, prepositions and 
conjunctions that I would have touched 
lightly. To give these little unemphatic 
words their full name sound, as many 
readers do, is most unnatural, and makes 
one's reading sound very like a Conos- 



36 THE ESSENTIALS 

toga wagon going over a corduroy road 
By tripping over the unimportant we 
bring the important into the foreground, 
which makes it easier for the listener 
to seize the thought. The reader that 
goes pounding over the words soon 
becomes tiresome. The only extempo- 
rizers that speak in this manner are those 
that endeavor to make up in clatter what 
they lack in matter. 

I have possessed your grace of what I purpose ; 
And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn 
To have the due and forfeit of my bond. 
If you deny it, let the danger light 
Upon your charter and your city's freedom. 
You'll ask me, why I rather choose to have 
A weight of carrion flesh than to receive 
Three thousand ducats : — I'll not answer that : 
But say, it is my humor : is it answered ? 
What if my house be troubled with a rat, 
And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats 
To have it baned ; what, are you answered yet? 
Some men there are love not a gaping pig ; 
Some, that are mad if they behold a cat. 
Now for your answer : 
As there is no firm reason to be rendered 
Why he cannot abide a gaping pig ; 
Why he, a harmless necessary cat ; 



OF ELOCUTION. 37 

So can I give no reason, nor will I not, 

More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing 

I bear Antonio, that I follow thus 

A losing suit against him. Are you answered ? 

Duke. — How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring 
none? 

Shy. — What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? 
You have among you many a purchased slave, 
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, 
You use in abject and in slavish parts, 
Because you bought them : shall I say to you, 
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs ? 
Why sweat they under their burdens ? let their beds 
Be made as soft as yours, let their palates 
Be seasoned with such viands ? you will answer, 
The slaves are ours : — So do I answer you : 
The pound of flesh that I demand of him 
Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it : 
If you deny me, fie upon your law ! 
There is no force in the decrees of Venice : 
I stand for judgment ; — answer : shall I have it ? 



When not emphatic the h in all the 
pronouns beginning with that letter 
should be touched very lightly. In con- 
versation initial h is frequently dropped 
entirely, in the pronouns, by those whose 
articulation is least faulty. There are not 
a few, however, that, when they appear 



$S THE ESSENTIALS 

in public and are "on their mettle," studi- 
ously avoid slurring the pronouns, and 
consequently are careful to aspirate the 
h distinctly in his, her, he and him, no 
matter whether the thought demands 
that the pronouns should be emphasized 
or not; but in their endeavor to be nicely 
correct they simply succeed in being 
pedantically wrong. This error seriously 
mars the delivery of many actors and 
public readers, making their elocution 
stilted and unnatural. Many of them 
slur my, not unfrequently making it me 
(e like y in only), in fact, when the y 
should retain its long sound ; but they 
seem to think it would be a heinous 
offence to treat the other pronouns in a 
like manner. Pronouns in which the 
letters should have their full value are 
met with only at considerable intervals. 

When, from being used in contradis- 
tinction to another personal pronoun, my 
is emphatic, the y has its full, open,long-z 



OF ELOCUTION. 39 

sound. Thus we should say, " Is this my 
ink or yours ?" But when there is no 
such emphasis — and there is but rarely — 
the y has the sound of obscure i\ as in 
mi-nut'e and miraculous, which is very 
like the sound of y in many, only, etc. 
u My [me] ink is as bad as my [me] pen" 
These rules, however, are and should be 
departed from in certain cases where we 
would express respect or emotion. " My 
[ml] brother shall know of this." " Sir, 
this lady is my [ml] wife." " Ay, madam, 
she was my [ml'] mother !" Say me in 
these sentences, and they become com- 
monplace ; you take all the soul out of 
them. 

14 Hearing their [ttir] conversation 
and their [ttir] accounts of the approba- 
tion their [ttir] papers were received 
with, I was excited to try my [me] hand 
among them [ttim]." — Franklin. 

" If their loss were as great as yours, 
it would bankrupt them [ttim]! 1 



40 THE ESSENTIALS 

" If you give me money, what are you 
going to give them ?" 

"If I had them \tJi?n\ now, I should 
know what to do with them \tKrri\r 

Why did you not come to me when I 
called you ? 

Though the name sounds of you and 
of me are yoo and mee respectively, their 
proper sounds in the sentence above, 
where they are unemphatic, is ye and 
me, the e in both cases having its ob- 
scure sound, which is the sound that 
terminal y has — any, many, only, nightly 
— and this is the only sound ever given 
to these pronouns, when they do not 
stand in positions that make them em- 
phatic, except by the pedantic. 

The name sound of your is yoor, but 
when it stands in unemphatic positions, 
as it generally does, its pronunciation 
approaches that of the last syllable of 
the word lawyer. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



HAMLETS ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS. 



4i 



Speak the speech (I pray you) as I pronounced it to you, 
trippingly on the tongue. But, if you mouth it (as many 
of our players do) I had as lief the town-crier had spoke 
my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much — your hand 
thus ; but use all gently : for, in the very torrent, tem- 
pest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you 
must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it 
smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a 
robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, 
to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings ; who 
(for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable 
dumb shows and noise. I could have such a fellow 
whipped for o'erdoing Termagant ; it out-herods Herod. 
Pray you, avoid it. 

Player. I warrant your honor. 

Be not too tame, neither ; but let your own discretion 
be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to 
the action ; with this special observance, that you o'erstep 
not the modesty of nature ; for anything so overdone is 
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first 
and now, was and is, to hold (as 'twere) the mirror up to 
nature : to show virtue her own featwe, scorn her own 
image, and the very age and body of the time his form 
and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, 
though it may make the unskilful laugh, cannot but 
make the judicious grieve j the censure of the which one 
must (in your allowance) outweigh a whole theatre of 
others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and 
heard others praise, and that highly (not to speak it 
profanely), that, having neither the accent of Christians nor 
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted 



42 THE ESSENTIALS 

and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's 
journeymen had made men, and not made them well r 
they imitated humanity so abominably. 

SHAKSPEARE. 

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY. 
To be or not to be — that is the question : 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And, by opposing, end them — To die — to sleep — 
No more ; and, by a sleep, to say we end 
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished. To die — to sleep — 
To sleep? — perchance to dream — aye, there' 's the rub t 
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause ! There s the respect 
That makes calamity of so long life : 
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of disprized love , the laws delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes — 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, 
To groan and sweat under a weary life, 
But that the dread of something after death — 
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
No traveller returns— puzzles the will, 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of ! 



OF ELOCUTIOX. 43 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all: 

And thus the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ; 

And enterprises oi great pith and moment, 

With Mz\f regard, their currents turn awry, 

And /W the «#/«<? of action. shakspeare. 

This soliloquy should not be spoken 
in less than four minutes — certainly not 
in less than three and a half. Mr. For- 
rest took six minutes — never less in his 
later years — to speak it, and his six min- 
utes — so fully did he engross the atten- 
tion of his listeners — did not seem 
longer than the three minutes of many 
others. 

So much in the way of directions ! 
And they should suffice to set the would- 
be reader to thinking and observing, 
and to studying Nature, which it is as 
much his duty to copy in her best forms 
as it is the painters or the sculptor's. 



44 THE ESSENTIALS 



DEPORTMENT. 

A word, and only a word, with regard 
to deportment on the rostrum or the 
stage. 

The first and most important thing 
to do is to learn to do nothing — to keep 
still, to stand firmly on the feet, without 
any dropping in the hips, letting the 
hands fall where the attraction of gravi- 
tation will take them. 

Of all the positions one can take, this 
one is the most graceful, and it may 
always be held until the demands of the 
occasion necessitate a change. It should 
never be changed simply for the sake of 
change. 

Yet it is the position least in favor 
with the tyro. He persists in fre- 
quently changing the position of his 
feet, in dropping in the hips, in putting 



OF ELOCUTION. 45 

his hands behind his back, on his hips, 
or in his trousers pockets ; in putting his 
thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, or in his 
belt, if he wears one, or in clutching his 
sword-hilt, if he carries one — in short, he 
persists in doing everything but the right 
thing, which is, I repeat, to keep still in 
the position described. 

No other one thing so quickly betrays 
the novice as fidgeting, and fumbling, 
and trying to hide the hands ; and no 
other one thing does so much to make 
one appear to be master of the situation, 
and to make one's bearing dignified and 
pleasing to the eye as — repose. 

If you would learn what not to do 
observe our younger actors — especially 
those that come to us from England. 
They — some of them, at least — would 
make a better figure if their arms were 
amputated at the shoulder. 

After rising to read to, or to address, 
an assemblage of persons, do not be in 



46 THE ESSENTIALS 

haste to begin. Always wait till youi 
auditors are quite still. Your waiting 
with composure will never fail to im- 
press your auditors favorably. 

Be sparing with your gestures. Make 
but few. The tyro generally makes 
fully six times too many. Let those you 
do make be made from the shoulder. 
Little gestures made from the elbow are 
meaningless. Gesture, if spontaneous, 
always precedes the word. Gestures that 
are not spontaneous are better not made. 



OF ELOCUTION. 47 



PULPIT ELOCUTION. 

Of the three places where we hear 
most public speaking and reading — our 
courts of law, our theaters, and our 
churches — the place where we hear the 
best elocution is the first, and the place 
where we hear the worst elocution is 
the last. The reason we hear the best 
elocution in our courts of law is because 
there the speakers are most occupied 
with the thoughts expressed by the 
language they utter, because there they 
are most in earnest, and 'because there 
they address themselves most to the 
intelligence. Mere sound produces its 
effect on the feelings, while reason 
alone reaches the intelligence. 

He that habitually addresses himself 
to the feelings of his auditors is sure 



48 THE ESSENTIALS 

to become artificial, while he that ha- 
bitually addresses himself neither to 
the feelings nor to the reason of his 
auditors is sure to become monotonous, 
and, indeed, is in great danger of be- 
coming a mere mumbler. In Metho- 
dist pulpits we find the best examples 
of the first class of speakers ; in Epis- 
copal pulpits, the best examples of the 
second. 

No man's delivery can be wholly bad 
if he have thought to utter that is 
worth the uttering, if he be master 
of the thought — it may not always be 
his — and if he be intent on impressing 
his auditors. The extemporizer is com- 
monly more effective than he that 
speaks a lesson conned, or speaks from 
a manuscript, simply because his mind 
is more fully occupied with the thought 
as he gives it utterance. I say commonly 
more effective, because it is possible for 
at least some persons so to cultivate the 



OF ELOCUTION. 49 

art of delivery as to be fully as effective 
in the delivery of a lesson conned as 
they would be if the whole — thought 
and language — were their own. For 
all, however, this requires much study, 
and for some persons, no matter how 
much study they give to the art of de- 
livery, skill is impossible. Some of 
our great players are probably quite as 
impressive in speaking the language of 
their parts as they would be if the 
thought were theirs, and the language 
came to them as they give it utterance. 
This accomplishment they acquire by 
availing themselves of the assistance of 
the best masters, and by studying Na- 
ture in her best forms. The most ef- 
fective speaker of language this coun- 
try has thus far produced, and one of 
the most effective any country has ever 
produced, was undoubtedly the late 
Edwin Forrest, who insisted that he 
owed even his wonderful voice to cul- 



5o 



THE ESSENTIALS 



ture. Mr. Forrest was one of the hard- 
est of hard students in his art ; not a 
thing did he leave undone that he 
thought would in any degree improve 
his elocution. In the matter of pro- 
nunciation, for example, he was one of 
the most correct persons that have ever 
spoken the English language. Therein 
it was always safe to take him as a 
guide. Nor was he less correct in those 
things that it is necessary to pay atten- 
tion to in order fully to bring out an 
author's thought. His emphasis, his 
pauses, and the inflections were always 
just what they should be to make his 
language impressive. 

Miss Charlotte Cushman was another 
wonderful reader. True, Forrest and 
Cushman were what the world calls 
geniuses, but their genius, like the 
genius of most geniuses, was in a great 
measure merely a genius for close ap- 
plication. The Forrests and the Cush- 



OF ELOCUTION. 



51 



mans are not more indebted to their 
natural gifts than they are to what they 
acquire by study. 

No man can make language thor- 
oughly effective that has not learned 
how to do it ; that is not studied and 
practiced in the art commonly called 
elocution, which The Standard Diction- 
ary defines as " proper and effective oral 
delivery. ,, One writer on the art says 
that elocution may be defined as simply 
"the intelligent, intelligible, correct, 
and effective interpretation and ex- 
pression of thought and emotion in 
speech and action. " Another says: 
" It is the appropriate utterance of the 
thoughts and feelings presented in 
written language.' ' A definition I pre- 
fer to either of these is this : " Elocu- 
tion is the art of speaking language so 
as to make the thought it expresses 
clear and impressive." 

Nor is the utterance the only thing 



5 2 THE ESSENTIALS 

to be considered ; the handling of the 
body — gestures, bearing — must also be 
considered if one would be a pleasing 
speaker. Oratory is an art, and like 
the other arts, is largely acquirable. 
How many preachers know anything 
about what is called stage or rostrum 
deportment? How often they appear 
awkward and ungainly, when, by follow- 
ing a few hints, they would appear dig- 
nified and commanding ! 

Much importance as has been at- 
tached to the art by many persons as 
far back, at least, as we have the his- 
tory of civilization, there is to-day one 
class of persons, a part of whose duties 
is to speak in public two or three times 
a week, that appear for the most part 
to attach no importance to it whatever. 
I mean the preachers. They, at least 
many of them, appear to care not a 
whit whether their delivery is good or 
bad. There are those that think this 



OF ELOCUTION. 



53 



comes of the fact that elocution is 
thought by many to make the speaker 
or reader unnatural and stilted. I 
think it may be found in the fact that 
many preachers are indifferent, and are 
content to discharge their duties in a 
simply perfunctory manner. If they 
had the burning zeal of a Paul or an 
Ulfilas, of a Luther or a Calvin, of a 
Massilon or a Whitfield, they should do 
all in their power to make their deliv- 
ery effective. In the Methodist pul- 
pits, for example, it is too often the 
fashion to vociferate — to rant, as the 
stage calls it — with all the physical 
•energy the speaker chances to possess. 
In the Episcopal, very many go to the 
other extreme. There they go so far 
in avoiding the vociferation indulged 
in by their Methodist neighbors that 
some of them lose all semblance of 
being in earnest. They % go through 
the entire service, sermon included, as 



54 



THE ESSENTIALS 



though they thought it quite " the 
thing" to be as monotonous and auto- 
matic as possible. The Methodist ap- 
pears to think his auditors want and 
expect what the stage calls "ginger," 
so he howls himself hoarse. The Epis- 
copalian, on the contrary, appears to 
think his auditors want and expect pro- 
priety, alias monotony, so he gives it to 
them in atone that oftentimes is hardly 
audible. Yet both Methodist and Epis- 
copalian profess to have the same mis- 
sion, to teach the same truths, to be 
guides in the same paths. It is, or is sup- 
posed to be, the mission of both to con- 
vince ; yet how differently do they go 
about the compassing of the object in 
view ! And still, since there have been 
men to convince, they have been con- 
vinced in essentially the same way; and 
as long as there are any men to convince, 
they will be convinced in essentially the 
same way. That way, however, is not 



OF ELOCUTION. 



55 



the way that fashion has introduced into 
a great majority of the pulpits of to-day. 
The speakers we find in these same 
pulpits, when they are really intent on 
bringing others to see as they see, are 
very different in manner from the man- 
ner they assume in their pulpits. Then 
they talk like men. Then, they are 
natural. Then, the one leaves off vo- 
ciferating; the other, mumbling. Then, 
they both leave off intoning. Then, 
they make a direct, earnest, honest, 
manly appeal to the listener. 

Some speakers, I should observe, 
resort to vociferation, to clatter, to 
make up for a paucity of matter. He 
that has thought to present that he is 
really desirous to have his auditors 
comprehend, instinctively avoids drown- 
ing it in a sea of sound. 

As I have already intimated, elocu- 
tion is looked upon with disfavor by 
very many persons. The reason is be- 



5 6 THE ESSENTIALS 

cause the so-called methods are nearly 
all bad, and because the self-called 
teachers of elocution, nineteen out of 
twenty of them, are worse than the 
methods. Elocution, however, can be 
taught, and taught as successfully as 
any other art can be taught. But, be- 
ware, you that would study the art — if 
there be any such — into whose hands 
you get. 

I have no doubt that if the reading 
and speaking done in our churches 
were done really well, from a purely 
elocutionary point of view, the church 
attendance would be well-nigh double 
what it is. If you want people to go 
to church you must interest them, and 
you can't interest them by holloing at 
them, or by mumbling at them. 

The success of a speaker before the 
average audience depends as much on 
the manner of the delivery as on the 
matter delivered. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



57 



A PLEA FOR THE INTELLECT- 
UAL IN ELOCUTION. 

The greater number of those who think themselves 
elocutionists know no more about elocution than a 
catfish knows about astronomy. — " Thespis " ON 
Elocution. 

There are a good many persons in 
this country that profess to occupy 
themselves with the art commonly, and 
properly, called elocution. They dis- 
agree in a good many things, but they 
all agree in one thing — that there are 
many persons in this country that will 
have none of them or of their art ; or, 
to get nearer to the matter, of what 
they call their art. 

Not a few of these artists, real or 
only self-called, seem to be desirous to 
do what they can to convince the world 
that elocution is a very good thing, and 



58 



THE ESSENTIALS 



hence a thing that every one would be 
the better for knowing something of. 
This ought to be an easy thing to do, 
since elocution is nothing else than 
good speaking, or perhaps it would be 
better to say it is good vocal delivery, 
which surely is a thing that no one 
would object to having, 

There is one thing more in which all, 
it would seem, are fully in accord ; and 
that is that to bring elocution " into 
better repute with the world," we have 
but to make the elocution of the elocu- 
tionists more frequently elocution. The 
course to pursue in order to bring this 
about is the question on which, it is 
fairly clear to the observer, no two 
think alike. One says: "We should 
be eager in our desires and work heart- 
ily," but he doesn't tell us how to work 
or what to work at. Another says: 
"You must advance or you will retro- 
grade," but she doesn't tell us what to 



OF ELOCUTION, 



59 



do in order to advance. This same 
adviser adds : " I feel that the diggers 
of the earth who go down deep have 
better results than those who spend 
their time in displaying w T hat they 
know"; but how our adviser would 
have us dig deep we are left to divine, 
hence the advice is of doubtful worth. 
Another says : " First of all, I think 
that elocution, both in teaching and in 
practice, will be reformed by the light 
of the harmonic principle." 

How the harmonic principle would 
aid in determining just what an author 
would say, and just how one should 
emphasize, inflect, and pause in order 
to make an author's meaning clear, we 
are left to find out as best we can. 
Here, perhaps, we should do well to 
invoke the aid of the principle har- 
monic. This same counsellor tells us 
that we must be in love with the poetry 
we attempt to interpret, and that the 



6o THE ESSENTIALS 

greatest thing in elocution, as in reli- 
gion, is the love of God. How love of 
God or of poetry could possibly sharpen 
one's wits I cannot see. I have yet to 
find that the pious read any better than 
the impious, nor has it ever seemed to 
me that love for the poetic betters that 
discretion that Shakespeare intimates 
is the elocutionist's best tutor. Indeed, 
I have always been under the impres- 
sion that poets are commonly bad read- 
ers, even of their own compositions. 
Love of poetry may, usually does, make 
the reader earnest, but unwhipped earn- 
estness is seldom anything but fuss and 
fury. Then we have "The New Elocu- 
tion," "The New Dynamic Reading," 
" The Psychological Elocution," and 
perhaps some other kinds of elocution 
that I have never heard of. Whether 
any one of these various kinds of elo- 
cution is likely to drag elocution out 
of the slough of despond, in which all 



OF ELOCUTION. 6 1 

concede that it at present wallows, is a 
matter that I have not even an impres- 
sion with regard to, as I have not even 
a vague idea of what these various 
kinds of elocution are. Philistine like, 
I have been content to stick to the old 
sort, of which I have still much to 
learn. No man should attempt the new 
till he has mastered the old. 

And then there are a good many 
persons who think, it would seem, that 
coming together and speaking some 
pieces to one another and clapping one 
another on the back and crying, Bravo, 
brother ! and Well done, sister ! whether 
the pieces are well spoken or not, will 
do something, or should do something, 
toward bringing elocution " into better 
repute with the world. " This, per- 
haps, will do the business, but I'm 
skeptical; I'm afraid it won't; I don't 
see how it can. On the contrary, this 
sort of thing, it seems to me, is shaped 



62 THE ESSENTIALS 

to do harm rather than good. There 
is danger that it will send the tyro home 
distended like the pouter-pigeon, with 
a misconception of his own importance, 
in which event he is more than ever in 
danger of never knowing how little he 
knows. Chest out and chin high, he 
says to himself: "Ha, ha! I read be- 
fore an audience of experts, and they 
applauded ! I thought I was, now I 
know that lam! Halleluiah! Glory 
to Art in the highest ! " No good can 
come of thinking one's self a game- 
cock when one is only a bantam. Com- 
monly, we profit more by being made to 
see our faults than by being blinded to 
them. Mutual admiration societies and 
air-castle building are very like in what 
they yield. 

That elocution is a good thing, since 
it is nothing else than "proper and 
effective oral delivery," no one will 
deny, though careless talkers often in- 



OF ELOCUTION. 63 

veigh against elocution when, if they 
would reflect for a moment, they would 
not inveigh against the art, but against 
those who profess to cultivate it. The 
habit prevails among actors to decry 
elocution; the less they know the more 
emphatic their disapproval, yet an 
actor's manner of speaking, more than 
all else, fixes his status in his vocation. 
So far as we know, all great actors 
have not only been great elocutionists, 
but they were schooled in elocutionary 
art by teachers of high or low degree, 
from Mr. William Shakespeare, of 
Stratford-on-the-Avon, to Miss Louisa 
A. Fangs, of New York on the Hudson. 
" And you," I imagine I hear a cho- 
rus of voices ask, "have you a way to 
drag elocution out of the slough in 
which it wallows?" Oh, yes, I have a 
way. Whether it be like Wolsey's, a 
sure and safe one, I will not pretend to 
.say. The outcome of pursuing my 



64 THE ESSENTIALS 

way would depend much upon the in- 
telligence employed in the pursuit. 

It has ever seemed to me that elocu- 
tion spreads out enormously in a di- 
rection whose domain the average elo- 
cutionist never deems it worth his while 
to explore, much less to cultivate. With 
few exceptions, so far as I have been 
able to judge, the now-a-day elocution- 
ists look upon elocution as being little 
more than a near kin to gymnastics. 
They begin, continue and end with the 
brawn side of the art, and demean 
themselves, from first to last, as though 
having got the voice-making machine 
in good condition and well under con- 
trol ; as though, having possessed them- 
selves of the power successfully to fire 
sound at words, they have done all 
there is to do to be an accomplished 
elocutionist. That elocution is an emi- 
nently intellectual art — an art the gym- 
nastic side of which to the intellectual 



OF ELOCUTION. 65 

side is as one to many — is something 
the elocutionists makes haste to say 
they know, while their doing says they 
know it not. 

That elocution is a highly intellect- 
ual, and, consequently, a very difficult 
art, we have evidence that amounts to 
proof in the fact that, so far as is gen- 
erally known, America has produced 
only two readers of the first class. If 
this be true, as both these readers have 
been more than twenty years dead, it 
might be questioned whether or not 
the great majority of the present gen- 
eration of elocutionists have had an op- 
portunity to learn what good reading 
is. Really good reading, I am sure, 
would be a revelation to the majority 
of the more intelligent of them ; the 
less intelligent would, perchance, re- 
mind us of the Mohawk that preferred 
a colored lithograph to a picture by 
Rubens. 



66 THE ESSENTIALS 

To those elocutionists who contend 
that a course in muscle training, in 
voice-culture, must precede every other 
step in acquiring the elocutionary art ; 
that it is useless to try to learn to read 
until one has trained the voice — to such 
elocutionists the field that the real elo- 
cutionist begins, continues, and ends 
with, is an unknown realm. The verit- 
able elocutionist, the elocutionist that 
recognizes the importance of cultivating 
the intellectual side of his art, in his 
teaching, gives little time to voice-cul- 
ture, and that little he gives grudg- 
ingly. He knows that if his pupil is 
in earnest, a few simple hints, a direct- 
ing word now and then will suffice to 
enable him, little by little, to strengthen 
the voice-making apparatus and get it 
under control. He feels, he knows, 
that to take a pupil's time in putting 
him through a course of voice exercises 
is to receive without making an equit- 



OF ELOCUTION, 67 

able return. He knows that the pupil 
can exercise and develop the voice- 
making muscles perfectly well without 
his immediate aid. Teachers that spend 
time in vocal culture are of the sort 
that contrive to make as many bites of 
the cherry as possible ; that are ever in- 
tent on making the little they know go as 
far as they can ; that are always studying 
to make the simple appear complex. 
The few things a reader has to do, in 
order to read well, offer difficulties so 
great that none ever attain to excel- 
lence but those who supplement natural 
aptitude with long and careful study. 
I would not be understood to intimate 
that the gymnastic elocutionists are 
dishonest. To censure them for not 
knowing what they never have had an 
opportunity to learn, or even to know 
the existence of, obviously would be 
unfair. Few of us ever see anything 
that is not pointed out to us. The 



68 THE ESSENTIALS 

fact, however, is still a fact, that the 
brawn side of elocution is to the brain 
side as a pond is to the Pacific.^ Mas- 
tery of the gymnastic side is within the 
easy reach of all. 

Cultivating the voice, moreover, after 
the fashion of the tonists is a danger- 
ous thing to do. If cultivated after 
their fashion, it seldom, if ever, fails to 
lead to artificiality. Cultivating special 
tones for this sentiment and for that 
sentiment, for this passion and for that 
passion, is fatal. The Murdock school 
of elocution has done infinite harm. 
The late Mr. Murdock was not a read- 
er ; he was a chanter. Keeping track 
of the thought in the tones of a sing- 
songer is bothersome. It is always 
safe to be direct and honest, subtle Iago 
to the contrary notwithstanding. The 
reader that thinks of the tones he makes 
quickly becomes tiresome. 

As we can very well judge of the 



OF ELOCUTION. 69 

grade of a man's culture by noting 
what he laughs at, so we can very well 
judge what an elocutionist knows of 
the art he professes to cultivate by no- 
ting what he applauds. At the first 
meeting of the National Association of 
Elocutionists, in 1892, a young woman 
read a selection from Shakespeare, and, 
as I thought, read badly. To my think- 
ing, there was but one thing in her 
reading to commend — earnestness — 
but the earnestness, being unschooled, 
was but little less than fuss and fury. 
Yet the two or three hundred experts 
there assembled applauded rapturously. 
Had the young woman read well, artist- 
ically, naturally, the fury and fuss would 
have been absent. Would the applause 
of the experts have been equally rap- 
turous? I doubt it, and I doubt it be- 
cause I noted what, at that convention, 
seemed most to please. Soon after the 
Shakespeare reading, a young woman 



7 o 



THE ESSENTIALS 



of winsome mien read a poem and read 
it with much intelligence. She seemed 
simply to have set herself the task of 
letting her auditors know what it was 
about, and this she did successfully. 
Her methods were direct and natural, 
without any apparent effort to be effect- 
ive. I heard no one at the convention 
that pleased me more ; but the im- 
pression she made on me was very 
different from the impression she seem- 
ed to make on her auditors generally, 
for they applauded in the most per- 
functory manner, and did not call for 
an encore, as was their habit. Though 
the young woman was unknown to me 
I sought her out and said what I could 
to console her. I have no doubt there 
were others in the audience — half-a- 
dozen, perhaps — that thought of the 
two readings essentially as I did, but 
the few counted for little among the 
many. On another occasion, at a re- 



OF ELOCUTION. 



71 



ception attended largely, if not wholly, 
by elocutionists, a young woman read 
a selection from Shakespeare, and read 
exceptionally well. Her effort was 
damned with faint applause ; it was 
plain that she had fired too high for 
her audience. The next number on 
the programme chanced to be a young 
woman from the West, who gave them 
a broadly humorous character sketch. 
This, though scarcely within the prov- 
ince of elocutionary art, the audience 
applauded till the windows rattled. 

All of which goes to show that our 
elocutionists, taken as we find them, do 
not know good reading from bad. Nor 
will they ever know good reading from 
bad until, instead of giving nine parts 
of their attention to the brawn side 
of elocution and one part to the brain 
side, they give nine parts of their at- 
tention to the brain side and one part 
to the brawn side. Indeed, if they will 



72 



THE ESSENTIALS 



but properly take care of the brain side, 
the brawn side will well-nigh take care 
of itself. Then we shall have elocution 
that is elocution, and elocutionists that 
are elocutionists; then, and not till 
then, will elocution stand with the stage 
and with the world as it deserves to 
stand. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



73 



THE PAUSE— ITS IMPORT- 
ANCE. 

All that is necessary in order to 
read well, is to speak naturally, but 
naturalness of all things is the most 
difficult thing to attain. Any one that 
can draw at all can draw something 
that would be readily recognized as an 
attempt to draw the human figure, but 
to draw the human figure so that it is 
true to Nature one must be a superb 
artist. 

The most difficult thing to learn in 
reading is properly to distribute the 
time, to be deliberate, to pause fre- 
quently and naturally. The accom- 
plished reader always takes plenty of 
time. He that does not, he that has- 
tens, never seems to be master of the 



74 



THE ESSENTIALS 



situation, to have his task well in hand, 
and consequently he never is as effec- 
tive as he might be. Nor must this 
deliberation appear in anything but in 
the frequency and in the length of the 
pauses. It must never appear in any 
drawling or dwelling on the words ; 
they must always come clean-cut and 
sharply defined. Pausing properly does 
more than any other one thing to make 
one's reading natural and realistic. In 
extemporizing we pause instinctively 
to give the listener time to compre- 
hend, and to prepare our next thought 
for presentation. 

The most accomplished and pains- 
taking reader does not pause always 
in the same places, but the variation in 
the places where he pauses, and takes 
breath, is inconsiderable. Pausing at 
just such places is not always so 
imperative as is the putting of the 
emphasis on certain words ; yet the 



OF ELOCUTION, 75 

pausing cannot vary much without 
materially affecting the delivery, and 
the points indicated by experts for 
making the pauses would not differ 
greatly. It occasionally — not infre- 
quently, perhaps — occurs that the 
reader pauses simply to take breath, 
when so far as the sense is concerned 
it is a matter of indifference whether a 
pause is made or not. If, however, 
the breath is well managed, this w r ill 
occur very rarely. Breathing places, 
z. e. places where the sense demands a 
pause, are usually abundant. The un- 
skilled reader commonly runs over a 
large percentage of them. In the in- 
terest of force and staying pow r er, the 
reader should avail himself of every 
opportunity the construction affords to 
breathe. Sometimes he should breathe 
between every word. For example : 
" Bloody, bawdy villain ! Remorseless, 
treacherous, lecherous, kindless vil- 



76 



THE ESSENTIALS 



lain!" He should take breath five 
times in speaking these eight words. 
Nor is it simply necessary to take 
breath ; the breathing should be full 
and deep. There is always plenty of 
time, if the reader knows how to use it. 
Pausing never makes a reader monoton- 
ous and tiresome ; but dragging out 
the words always does. 

Being mindful of the fact that an 
ounce of example is worth a pound of 
theory, I submit two or three speeches 
from Shakespeare with the pauses, at 
the least, approximately indicated. 
Pauses made with discretion vary, of 
course, very much in length ; some are 
only momentary, while others may be 
measured by seconds. 

Here is a speech in which certain 
pauses are as necessary as are any to 
be found in any passage I can at the 
moment recall ; and yet the majority of 
the Mercutios I have heard have run 



OF ELOCUTION, 



77 



over them without even the suspicion 
of a halt : 

Ha! ha! a dream? O, then 1 see! 

Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' 

midwife and she comes in shape no bigger 

than an agate-stone on the forefinger of an alder- 
man drawn with a team of little atomies 

athwart men's noses as they lie asleep ; Her 

waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs ; 

the cover of the wings of grasshoppers ; the 

traces of the smallest spider's web ; the collars 

of the moonshine's watery beams ; her whip 

of cricket's bone ; the lash of film ; her 

waggoner a small gray-coated gnat not 

half so big as a round little worm pricked 

from the lazy finger of a maid ; her chariot is 

an empty hazel nut made by the joiner squirrel 

or old grub time out of mind the fairies' 

coach-makers. And in this state she gallops 

night by night through lovers' brains and 

then they dream on love ; o'er courtiers' 

knees that dream on curtsies straight ; o'er 

doctors' fingers who straight dream on fees ; 

o'er ladies' lips who straight on kisses dream ; 

sometimes she gallops o'er a lawyer's nose 

and then dreams he of smelling out a suit ; 

and sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail 

tickling a parson as he lies asleep ; then 

dreams he of another benefice ; sometime 

she driveth o'er a soldier's neck and then 

dreams he of cutting foreign throats ; of breaches 



yS THE ESSENTIALS 

ambuscades Spanish blades of healths 

five fathoms deep ; and then anon drums in 

his ears at which he starts and wakes ; and 

being thus frighted swears a prayer or two 

and sleeps again. 

Hamlet's advice to the Players 
should, I think, be paused substantially 
thus : 

Speak the speech 1 pray you as I pronounced 

it to you trippingly on the tongue but if you 

mouth it as many of our players do 1 had as 

lieve the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not 

saw the air too much with your hand thus 

but use all gently for in the very torrent tem- 
pest and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion 

you must acquire and beget a temperance 

that may give it smoothness. O, it offends 

me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig- 

pated fellow tear a passion to tatters to very 

rags to split the ears of the groundlings who 

for the most part are capable of nothing 

but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. 1 

would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing 

Termigant it out-herods Herod. Pray you 

avoid it. 

Be not too tame neither but let your own dis- 
cretion be your tutor suit the action to the 

word and the word to the action with this 

special observance that you o'erstep not the mod- 



OF ELOCUTION. 



79 



«sty of nature for anything so overdone is 

from the purpose of playing whose end both 

at the first and now was and is to hold 

as 'twere the mirror up to nature to show 

virtue her own feature scorn her own image 

and the very age and body of the time his 

form and pressure. Now this overdone or 

come tardy off though it makes the unskillful 

laugh cannot but make the judicious grieve 

the censure of which one must in your allow- 
ance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, 

there be players that I have seen play and 

heard others praise and that highly not to 

speak it profanely that neither having the accent 

of Christian nor the gait of Christian pagan 

nor man have so strutted and bellowed 

that I have thought some of nature's journeymen 

had made men and not made them well they 

imitated humanity so abominably. 

I hope we have reformed that indifferently 

with us. 

O, reform it altogether. And let those that play 

your clowns speak no more than is set down for 

them for there be of them that will themselves 

laugh to set on some quantity of barren specta- 
tors to laugh too though in the meantime 

some necessary question of the play be then to be 

considered that's villainous and shows a most 

pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. 

In a few instances, I have left the 
pause with which we always follow 



80 THE ESSENTIALS 

every strongly emphatic word un- 
marked. For example, we read : That 
will themselves — laugh — to set on, etc. 
I aim not to suggest the elocution of 
these speeches, but to demonstrate the 
importance of the pause as a part of 
elocution. 



OF ELOCUTION. 8 1 



STUDIES IN EMPHASIS, 
i. 

To learn to read well is the business of half a life. 
— Macaulay. 

One of the chief things to be at- 
tended to in reading is to give to the 
individual words the relative import- 
ance requisite to make the thought 
easy to seize by the listener. He that 
reads well trips lightly over a large 
majority of the words. When we in 
any way give prominence to a word in 
the utterance we are said to emphasize 
it. To be convinced that emphasizing 
properly is important, we have only to 
reflect that a change of emphasis often 
changes the meaning of a sentence, or 
suggests a thought in the context that 
is not there, If we read : 

It becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown, 



82 THE ESSENTIALS 

we suggest the thought that the con- 
text says that " it becomes the throned 
monarch as well as his crown." The 
sense determined, there cannot be two 
equally good ways to read. Indeed, 
the sense determined, there is never 
but one best way to read, and this best 
way it is always the reader's duty to 
find, if he can. 

The importance of emphasizing pro- 
perly can hardly be overestimated. 
Professor S. H. Clark, in speaking of 
the importance of being right in em- 
phasizing, says : §l One's emphasis is 
the gauge of one's ability to under- 
stand. Whatever else a man may be, 
he is not a reader if he fails to empha- 
size correctly. One who emphasizes 
correctly is more than likely to do jus- 
tice to his author in other regards. 
Nothing else betrays our ignorance of 
the text like bad emphasis. Emphasis 
means judgment and the judgment that 



OF ELOCUTION, 83 

guides one to discreet and illuminative 
emphasis is more than likely to lead 
one to a proper emotional rendering." 

In a book recently published, entitled 
"The Art of Reading and Speaking," 
by Canon Fleming, Chaplain-in-Ordin- 
ary to Queen Victoria, there are some 
forty pages given up to selections from 
Shakespeare and Milton with those 
words italicized that, in the author's 
judgment, should, in the reading, be 
emphasized. There are often words 
emphasized that I should not empha- 
size, and sometimes there are words 
un-emphasized that I should empha- 
size. 

It is not probable that the Canon's 
reading would differ as much from 
mine as his marking differs from mine. 
It is often hard to decide, in marking 
emphasis, whether to italicize a word 
or not. In such cases, I usually leave 
the word unitalicized, lest the italicizing 



84 THE ESSENTIALS 

prove misleading. Over-emphasis is 
something the reader should be careful 
to avoid, as over-emphasis may easily 
be carried so far as to bar the effect of 
the emphases that are properly placed. 
Though neither the Canon nor I may 
be right, yet the study of our marking 
must tend to make the student of the 
art of reading more painstaking than 
he otherwise might be. 

There are few persons — even on the 
stage, in the pulpit, or on the rostrum — 
that have any apprehension of the field 
that the art of reading offers for the 
exercise of the intelligence. The art 
of delivery, of reading, of elocution — 
call it what you will — affords a field for 
the display of as much perception as 
does any one of the other arts. In 
proof thereof, we have the fact that 
there are fewer persons that excel in 
reading than there are that excel in 
painting or sculpture, not to mention 



OF ELOCUTION. 85 

music, which is the least intellectual of 
all the arts, if we consider only the 
making of sweet sounds. 

Here are some of the lines in the 
Canon's book with the changes I would 
suggest in the marking of them : 

1. Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! 

2. Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned ; 

3. Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from 

hell, 

4. Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 

5. Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, 

6. That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee — Hamlet. ■ 

7. King, Father, Royal Dane ! O, answer me, 

8. Let me not burst in ignorance ; but tell 

9. Why thy canonized 'bones, hearsed 'in death, 

10. Have ^rj-/ their cerements ; why the sepulchre, 

11. Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned, 

12. Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws, 

13. To ttzj/ thee «/ again ! What may this ?nean, 

14. That //z#«, dead corse, again, in complete steel, 

15. Revisit ' st thus the glimpses of the moon, 

16. Making night hideous ; and we, fools of nature, 

17. So horridly to shake our disposition 

18. With thoughts beyond the. reaches of our souls ? 

19. Say, 2£//^j/ is this ? Wherefore ? What should 

we do? 

The first seven lines seem to me to 



86 THE ESSENTIALS 

be marked with good discretion till we 
come to the last word — Why empha- 
size me ? There is no question of the 
Ghost's answering anyone else. 

I should not italicize : eighth line, 
neither not nor tell ; tenth line, why ; 
thirteenth line, cast, what; fifteenth 
line, revisit 'st ; sixteenth line, night; 
seventeenth line, so, shake ; eighteenth 
line, beyond ; nineteenth line, why this. 

I should italicize : eleventh line, 
quietly ! sixteenth line, nature ; eigh- 
teenth line, souls ; nineteenth line, is. 

In making three syllables of canon- 
ized and two of hearsed, the learned 
Canon conforms to immemorial usage ; 
the rhythm, however, is greatly bet- 
tered by making four syllables of canon- 
ized and one of hearsed. Indeed, this 
change, with the pause that falls after 
bones, makes the rhythm well-nigh per- 
fect, 

Two of Canon Fleming's readings in 



OF ELOCUTION. 87 

the speech above have been defended 
thus : 

In summing up Mr. Ayres says of the seventh line 
of the speech beginning "Angels and ministers of 
grace," etc., "Why emphasize me? There is no 
question of the Ghost's answering anyone else." 

According to the play there is a very decided ques- 
tion of the Ghost answering some one else. The 
Ghost first appears twice to Bernardo and Marcellus 
— they communicate this to Horatio, and upon the 
occasion of his watch he attempts to speak to the 
Ghost. Horatio determines to inform Hamlet, for 
11 this spirit dumb to us will speak to him.''' 

Now when Hamlet is acquainted with the facts of 
the Ghost's visitations he determines to watch and 
speak to it though it " blast me." 

I should think that Canon Fleming's reading was 
beautifully correct, because it takes notice of a very 
trifling detail in the speech, and it rather surprises 
me that Mr. Ayres should have failed to grasp it. 

On that little word me, properly emphasized, hangs 
a great deal of the pathos and power of Hamlet's 
appeal. In that one word is all this meaning : You 
have thrice appeared to these soldiers, and once even 
Horatio had courage to address you, but answer you 
make not — now it is I, Hamlet, your son, who speaks 
to you, my father's spirit. "Hamlet, King, Father, 
Royal Dane ! O answer me." 

Again, in the nineteenth line, Mr. Ayres says 
"I should not italicize why, this, in 'Say, why is 
this!"' 



88 THE ESSENTIALS 

Hamlet makes several distinct interrogations and 
he sums up : 

Say, why 'is this? Wherefore? What should we do? 

Canon Fleming's reading is most correct, because 
by a proper emphasis of why and this, the full force 
of the questions asked is made sufficiently impressive. 
Whereas, if Hamlet had but asked one question, 
then it seems to me it would have been incorrect to 
italicize why and this. 

To be sure, the best authorities will always dis- 
pute many things in Shakespeare, more especially 
as to the correct reading of certain passages, but, 
after all, there can be only one that is really correct. 

My reply is : 

Mr. Markley's plea for the emphases 
that he defends is, I think, as strong as 
it would be possible for anyone to 
make ; yet it is not strong- enough to 
make me, " on second thought/' look 
upon Canon Fleming's emphasis in the 
two instances that Mr. Markley defends 
as being acceptable. 

Canon Fleming and Mr. Markley 
contend for, "O, answer me" and 
''why is this?" I contend for, " O, 
answer me " and " Why is this ? " 



OF ELOCUTION, 89 

The least of my reasons for not em- 
phasizing me — which, if emphasized at 
all, must be made much more emphatic 
than answer — is because the vowel of 
me is the most difficult of all the vowels 
to make emphatic. This is a consider- 
ation that counts for something with the 
reader. Another reason — which is of 
somewhat more importance — lies in the 
fact that far-fetched emphases are al- 
ways objectionable ; they are likely to 
divert the auditor's attentions from the 
matter immediately in hand — a thing 
that the player, the reader, and the 
speaker should always study to avoid. 
But these are reasons of comparatively 
little weight ; the chief reason, the rea- 
son that far outweighs all others for 
my objecting to Canon Fleming's read- 
ing lies in the fact that the learned 
Canon's reading does not express 
Hamlet's thought ; does not say what 
Hamlet wants to say, which is this : Do 



9 o 



THE ESSENTIALS 



not persist in remaining silent. Dis- 
close, make known, what your mission 
is. Do not let me burst in ignorance, 
but tell me why you go stalking about 
when you should lie quietly inurned in 
your goodly marbled sepulchre. The 
whole speech shows clearly : ay, most 
emphatically, that Hamlet's whole be- 
ing is possessed with the desire to be 
answered and not that he, being the 
Ghost's son, has claims to consideration 
that his comrades have not. The 
thought the Canon's reading expresses 
has the great demerit of being signally 
belittling. 

As for the other reading — why is this 
— it has not, to my thinking, a peg to 
stand on. Hamlet asks : What means 
this, what imports, what signifies this, 
why is this — your going about thus, by 
the " glimpses of the moon, making 
night hideous." O, answer me ! 



OF ELOCUTION. 



II. 



91 



You speak the things you should speak, but you 
speak them not in the manner they should be 
spoken. — Plutarch. 

The more I study Canon Fleming's 
marking, the more am I inclined to 
think that his reading is of the stilted, 
ponderous sort that tries to get an effect 
out of every word. Here is a speech 
of Cassius' (Julius Caesar, Act I., Sc. 
2) in which the learned Canon italicizes 
double the number of words that, in 
my judgment, should be emphasized. 
Take, for example, the line : 

Brutus will start 3. spirit as soon as Ccesar. 

Read as here indicated, the utterance is, 
it seems to me, most monotonous and 
non-natural, having none of the spirit 
in it that pervades the entire speech. 
This is an easy sort of reading. Any 
one can pound over words in a trip- 
hammer sort of way, whereas to go 



9 2 



THE ESSENTIALS 



lightly over the unimportant and to 
dwell on the important words with that 
appreciative discrimination that makes 
the thought clear and forcible; that 
causes the listener to be occupied with 
the matter rather than with the manner, 
is never an easy thing to do. The 
thought, and not the sound, is what 
enlists and holds the attention of the 
listener. In the thought there is never 
any sameness, whereas tones continu- 
ally recur, hence they quickly pall. 
The time consumed by the two styles 
differs but little, but they distribute the 
time very differently. The one is the 
style of the brawn elocutionist, the 
other of the brain elocutionist ; the one, 
of the reader that merely apprehends 
his author ; the other, of the reader that 
fully comprehends his author. If we 
read the line I have quoted as it is 
italicized above, and then read it thus : 

Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Ccesar, 



« 

OF ELOCUTION, 93 

we quickly see, or I greatly err, that by 
going lightly over three of the words 
our English author emphasizes, the ren- 
dering of the line gains immensely in 
effect as well as in animation. 

Here is the entire speech as the 
learned Canon marks it : 

1. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 

2. Like a Colossus ; and we petty i?ien 

3. Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 

4. To find ourselves disho7ior able graves. 

5. Men at sotnetime are masters of their fates : 

6. The fault , dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

7. But in ourselves that we are underlings 

8. Brutus and Ccesar ! what should be in that Ccesar T 

9. Why should that name be sounded 7nore thsmyours 

10. Write them together, yours is as fair a name ; 

11. Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well; 

12. Wc'gh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them 

13. Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Ccesar. 

14. Now in the names of all the gods at 0«^ 

15. Upon what meat does f£w our Ccesar feed 

16. That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed; 

17. Rome, thou hast /w/ the breed oi noble bloods. 

18. When went there ^y an 0^, since the great flood, 

19. But it was famed with w<?r^ than 0/2^ man ? 

20. When could they say, till «^w, that talked oi Ro?ne > 

21. That the wide walls, incompassed but one man ? 

22. A^w is it Rome indeed, and room enough, 



94 



THE ESSENTIALS 



23. When there is in it but one only man, 

24. Oh, you and /have heard our fathers say, 

25. There was a Brutus once that would have brooked, 

26. The eternal devil to keep his jfote in Rome 

27. As easily as a king ! 

In these twenty-seven lines one hun- 
dred and four words are marked for 
emphasis, fifty more than I should 
mark. In the first line I should not 
mark bestride, narrow, or world; nor in 
the second line we men ; fifth line, mas- 
ters ; sixth line, dear, not; seventh line, 
underlings; eighth line, what, that; 
ninth line, name, more; tenth line, write, 
together, name; eleventh line, become; 
thirteenth line, start, spirit, soon; four- 
teenth line, now, names, all; fifteenth 
line, meat, this, Cczsar; sixteenth line, 
so; seventeenth line, lost, bloods; eight- 
eenth line, by, age; nineteenth line, 
famed, more; twentieth line, when, they, 
talked, Rome; twenty-first line, wide, 
walls; twenty-third line, when, man; 
twenty-fourth line, oh, you, I; twenty- 



OF ELOCUTION. ge 

fifth line, Brutus, brooked; twenty-sixth 
line, eternal, state, Rome. 

On the other hand, in the third line, I 
should mark for emphasis the word 
about, as I think it should be made quite 
as emphatic as the preceding word. I 
should also mark feed in the fifteenth 
line for emphasis, and king in the last 
line. 

Any one desirous to compare the 
two readings would do well to copy the 
speech and mark it as I suggest, or to 
mark it in the printed page. 



in. 



The right word in the right place, and the right 
emphasis on the right word. — Dr. Rush. 

As I have already intimated, a great 
fault, to my thinking, with Canon 
Fleming's reading is over-emphasizing. 
This, I think, clearly appears, if we 
study his marking of the following 



96 THE ESSENTIALS 

scene — the first of the third act of 
" The Merchant of Venice " : 

Shylock. — How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa?' 
Hast thou found my daughter? 

At the utmost, I should italicize only 
the words now, Genoa, and daugh- 
ter. The utterance the Canon, if I 
understand him, recommends is monot- 
onous and non-natural. 

Tubal. — I often came where I did hear of her ; but 
cannot find her. 

Why emphasize came, did ox cannot? 
I fail to see any reason for it. Hear 
and find are the only words that should 
be made specially to stand out. 

SHYLOCK. — Why, there, there, there! A diamond 
gone — cost me two thousand ducats at Frankfort. The 
curse never fell upon our nation till now. I never felt 
it till now. 

I should not italicize nation till. 
Though it is Shakespeare, the diction, 
I venture to intimate, is bettered by 
transposing the words of the next sen- 
tence, thus: Till now, I never felt it. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



97 



This transposition, if I do not err, en- 
ables the reader to make the sentence 
more effective, for the reason that it 
puts the most emphatic word near the 
end. No one is invulnerable — no, not 
even Shakespeare. It is questionable 
whether I never should be italicized; I 
am inclined to think not. 

Two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, 
precious jewels ! 

Neither ducats nor jewels seem tome 
to be emphatic. 

I would my daughter were dead at my foot and the 
jewels in her ear. Would she were hearsed a.t my foot 
and the ducats in her coffin. 

There are only four words here that 
I should mark for emphasis, the first 
foot, ear, hearsed, and coffi?i> Passion 
is commonly rapid. Rapidity would be 
impossible if the reader tarried on all 
the words our author italicizes. 

No news of them ! Why so ; and I krww not what's 
spent in the search. Why, thou loss upon loss ! 



9 S THE ESSENTIALS 

The first sentence being little else 
than a wail, an exclamation — a question 
it is not — I should make as much of no 
as of news. Why so I should treat in 
like manner. I should also emphasize 
the second loss. Know not and spent 
I should not emphasize. 

The thief gone with so much and so much to fnd the 
thief ; and no satisfaction, no revenge, nor no ill luck 
stirring but what lights o' my shoulders ; no sights but 
o' my breathing ; no tears but o' my shedding ! 

Nine of the twenty-four words here 
marked for emphasis I should not em- 
phasize. In the clause: "And so much to 
find the thief," I should emphasize only 
one word — -find. To read it according 
to the Canon's marking would be to 
drown it in a sea of sound — a thing that 
any fellow having a good voice-making 
apparatus, can do, whether he have any 
brains or not. I should not emphasize 
the second so much, the second thief y 
the second no, no ill luck y nor the two 
succeeding no's. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



99 



Tubal. — Yes, other men have ill hick, too. Antonio, 
as I heard in Genoa — 

I should not emphasize yes or ill- 
luck. 

SHYLOCK. — What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck? 
Tubal. — Hath an argosy cast away, coming from 
Tripolis. 

Argosy and Tripolis seem to me to 
be the only words that should be made 
at all prominent. 

Shylock. — I thank God; I thank God. Is it true? 
Is it true ? 

Tubal. — I spoke with some of the sailors that y scaped 
the wreck. 

I should, at the most, mark sailors 
and wreck for emphasis. 

Shylock. — I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, 
good news. Ha, ha! Where? in Genoa ? 

The only possible reason that I can 
see for emphasizing the first good is in- 
sufficient. News, both times, and Ge- 
noa should be made quite as emphatic 
as any other words in the speech. 

Tubal. — Your daughter j/^«/, in Genoa, as I heard, 
one night, fourscore ducats. 



1 oo THE ESSEN TIALS 

I should expend neither time nor 
stress on spent, nor should I heed the 
comma. The reader should always be 
on his guard against expending his 
breath where he would get no return 
for it. 



Shylock. — Thou stick' st a dagger in me. I shall 
never see my gold again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting ! 
Fourscore ducats ! 

Stick } st should surely not be empha- 
sized. I have always read: "Fourscore 
ducats — at a sitting?" having Tubal 
nod in answer to the question. The 
clause is commonly treated as an ex- 
clamation. My treatment, I think, 
makes the clause much more effective. 

Tubal. — There came divers of Antonio's creditors in 
my company to Venice that swear he cannot choose but 
break. 

At the most, I should mark for em- 
phasis creditors, swear, and break. 

Shylock. — I am very glad of it. I'll plague him ; 
I'll torture him ; I'm glad of it. 

The very in the first sentence is a 



OF ELOCUTION. ioi 

superfluity. More can be made of the 
sentence without it than with it. Were 
I to speak the very, I should touch the 
glad comparatively lightly. 

Tubal. — One of them showed me a ring that he 
had of your daughter for a monkey. 

What a heartless little wretch Jessica 
is — swap a ring that was a present from 
her mother to her father for a monkey ! 

Shylock. — Out upon her ! Thou torturest me, 
Tubal. It was my torquoise. I had it of Leah when 
I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a 
-wilderness of monkeys. 

It not being necessary, in order to 
make the thought clear, to emphasize 
given it is bad technique to make much 
of it. The skillful reader would touch 
it lightly in order that wilderness might 
be made to stand out the more boldly ; 
then he would pause long enough after 
it to take a deep, full breath which he 
would expend in a burst on wilderness, 
thereby ending one of the best short 



102 THE ESSENTIALS 

speeches ever written with a telling; 
climax. 

Tubal. — But Antonio is certainly undone. 

Shylock. — Nay that's true, that's very true. Go r 
Tubal, fee me an officer ; bespeak him a fortnight before. 
I will have the heart of him if forfeit ; for were he 
out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. 
Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good 
Tubal ; at our Synagogue, Tubal. 

I should read : " That's very true," 
and "bespeak him a fortnight before." 
As for if, I defy all the bellowcution- 
ists in Christendom to find a reason 
worth a blade of grass for emphasizing 
it. Not once in a hundred times when 
we hear this little word mauled is there 
any reason for treating it other than 
with the greatest delicacy. Neither 
merchandise, meet, nor good should I 
emphasize, unless I paused after me to 
decide upon the place of meeting — 
which I always do — then, I should 
dwell on meet. If this treatment was 
intended by our author, he should have 
put a dash after me. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



IV. 



103 



M If little labor, little are our gains ; 

Man's fortunes are according to his pains." 

Canon Fleming has given more 
space in his book to " The Merchant of 
Venice " than to any other of the Shake- 
speare plays. He begins his marking 
of the fourth act for emphasis with the 
Duke's speech, which he treats thus : 

1. Make room and let him stand before our face. 

2. Shy lock, the world thinks ■, and I think so, too, 

3. That thou but lead st this fashion of thy malice 

4. To the last hour of act ; and then, 'tis thought, 

5. Thou'lt show thy 7nercy and remorse more strange 

6. Than is thy strange apparent cruelty ; 

7. And where thou now exact 1 st the penalty — 

8. Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh — 

9. Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture, 

10. But, touched with human gentleness and love 

11. Forgive a moiety of the principal ; 

12. Glancing an eye of pity on his losses 

13.' That have, of late, so huddled on his back 

14. Enough to press a royal merchant down 

15. And pluck commiseration of his state 

16. From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint, 

17. From stubborn Turks and Tartars never trained 



io4 



THE ESSENTIALS 



18. To offices of tender courtesy, 

19. We all expect a gentle answer, Jew. 

Why emphasize stand? It's not a 
question whether the Jew stand or sit ; 
it's a question of the place where he 
stand. 

In the second line, the only emphatic 
words are world, /, and too. 

The third line I should leave un- 
marked. There is no word in the line 
that in the reading should be made 
specially salient. 

In the fourth line, I should make 
hour quite as emphatic as the other 
emphatic words. Act, possibly, should 
be slightly more emphatic than the 
other words. The reasons, however, 
would occupy too much space. 

In the fifth line, more should be 
touched quite lightly. The thought- 
less reader never fails to dwell on it ; 
not because he has a reason for doing 
so, but because he unconsciously yields 



OF ELOCUTION. I0 5 

to the beguiling influence of the long 
o, the most sonorous vowel in the lan- 
guage. 

The wisdom of marking loose in the 
ninth line is questionable. If at all 
emphatic, it is only slightly so. The 
marking is misleading. 

The tenth line, read as the Canon 
marks it, could, it seems to me, not be 
other than very " preachy." It sounds 
to my mind's ear, as I look at it, like 
the delivery of those that, instinctively, 
endeavor to make up in clatter what 
they lack in matter. It smacks of the 
sound-and-fury sort of elocution. The 
words touched and human should not 
be made at all emphatic. The empha- 
sizing of the two words is utterly inde- 
fensible. 

The emphasizing of forgive in the 
eleventh line is quite natural, and con- 
sequently proper, provided the reader 
employ a persuasive tone ; if, however, 



106 THE ESSENTIALS 

the tone be strictly judicial, the word 
should come in for no emphasis. 

In the thirteenth line, I should dwell 
on so, making it, possibly, more em- 
phatic than huddled. 

There is only one emphatic word in 
the fourteenth line — royal. 

The emphasis on pluck in the fif- 
teenth line is probably a misprint. 

The three following lines I should 
read essentially thus : 

From brassy booms and rough hearts of flint 
From stubborn Turks and Tartars never trained 
To offices of tender courtesy. 

There is no question of the kind of 
Turks, or Tartars, or of courtesy, 
hence the adjectives should not be em- 
phasized. Take the adjectives out and 
the language loses none of its force. I 
think I shall not be alone of the opin- 
ion that the learned Canon's reading is 
sometimes rather ill-digested. 

The nineteenth line is sometimes 



OF ELOCUTION. 



107 



read as marked, and sometimes read 
without any emphasis on answer. Both 
readings are defensible. I prefer the 
reading that emphasizes answer. 



Proficiency in the art of elocution, as well as in the 
other arts, is the work of time and labor. — Bronson. 

Canon Fleming continues to indicate 
the emphasis he thinks will most clear- 
ly bring out the thought in the fourth 
act of " The Merchant of Venice " by 
marking the lines thus : 

1. I have possessed your Grace of what I purpose ; 

2. And by our holy sabbath have I sworn 

3. To have the due and forfeit of my bond. 

4. If you deny it, let the danger light 

5. Upon your charter and your city' s freedom. 

6. You'll ask me why I rather choose to have 

7. A weight of carrion flesh , than to receive 

8. Three thousand ducats ; I'll not answer that ; 

9. But say it is my humor. Is it answered ? 

10. What if my house be troubled with a rat 

11. And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats 

12. To have it baned ? What — are you answered yet ? 

13. Some men there are love not a. gaping pig ; 



lo8 THE ESSENTIALS 

14. Some that are mad ii they behold a cat, 

15. A 7 ^ for your answer. 

16. As there is no firm reason to be rendered 

17. Why he cannot abide a gaping pig, 

18. Why he a harmless, necessary cat. 

19. 60 can /give no reason, nor arc// I not, 

20. More than a lodged hate, and a certain loathing 

21. I &?a:r Antonio that I follow /^«j 

22. A losing suit against him. Are you answered? 

To my thinking, ^zz><? in the third 
line should be touched quite lightly. I 
can imagine a reader going over the 
line — as many would — with an ele- 
phantine tread, making much of have ; 
but such readers are not the sort of 
readers that take Nature as their mod- 
el. They are of the sort of readers 
that — unwittingly, perhaps — seek to get 
their effects out of the sound of their 
voices rather than out of the thoughts 
of their author. Such reading is utter- 
ly wanting in movement, snap, action, 
earnestness ; in short, it utterly lacks 
the natural. It is an easy sort of read- 
ing ; easy because it does not tax the 



OF ELOCUTION. 



109 



intelligence. Many persons of high 
intelligence read in this manner from 
habit. It has never occurred to them 
that there is any other way to read ; 
that if the thoughts were theirs, and 
the language came to them as they 
give it utterance they would speak it in 
an entirely different manner. If such 
readers chance upon any one whose 
utterance is true to Nature — particular- 
ly if they hear something read that they 
themselves read — the effect on them, 
not infrequently, is startling ; the ex- 
ceeding difference in treatment is a 
revelation to them. 

True, danger in the fourth line, city s 
in the fifth, ask in the sixth, and weight 
in the seventh properly get a little 
stress, but they, properly, get so little 
stress compared with the more emphat- 
ic w r ords that, in my judgment, it is 
misleading to mark them. I don't see 
how a reader could fail to give them 



1 10 THE ESSENTIALS 

all the prominence they demand. The 
other words italicized should bespoken 
with all the unction the reader is mas- 
ter of. 

Not, that and say in the eighth and 
ninth lines are absolutely unemphatic. 
Read as marked, how ponderous the 
second clause of the eighth line is ! A 
great effect may be produced with hu- 
mor, but not if the reader tarries on 
the word say. 

In the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth 
lines, there are only five emphatic 
words — rat, ten, baned, what, and yet. 
All the other words should be spoken 
rapidly. After rat, and before and 
after ten, the reader should pause quite 
as long as he would after what in the 
twelfth line. 

The learned Canon's marking of the 
thirteenth line is peculiar. According 
to his reading, there are men that, 
though they love not gaping pigs, they 



OF ELOCUTION. 1 1 i 

do love pigs that do not gap. Neither 
love nor not is emphatic, while pig is 
slightly the most emphatic word in the 
line. 

While I should not emphasize ren- 
dered in the sixteenth line, I should 
emphasize reason very strongly. The 
defense of the emphasis on no firm is 
easily seen, but to my thinking, it is 
hardly worth considering. Indeed, 
these two words are but slightly em- 
phatic. 

In the seventeenth and eighteenth 
lines, I should emphasize pig and cat 
very strongly, and should not empha- 
size abide. 

In the nineteenth line, I should em- 
phasize neither so nor no. 

I always make two syllables of lodged, 
as to my ear it betters the rhythm. It 
is always printed, I believe, as one syl- 
lable. The fact that if two syllables 
be made of the word the line has a syl- 



1 1 2 THE ESSENTIALS 

lable too many, does not disturb me. 
Rhythm, smoothness, is the thing that 
is important. 

To my seeing, there is not one em- 
phatic word in the twenty-first line, 
and only two in the twenty-second — 
losing and answered. 

If these discussions -axe studied, they 
will not fail, I think, to interest and 
benefit many ; but, if they are only 
read, they will, I fear, neither interest 
nor benefit anyone. 



VI. 



" The student of the art of delivery never finishes,, 
there is always something left for him to learn." 

Canon Fleming proceeds to mark the 
emphatic words in the fourth act of 
" The Merchant of Venice " as follows : 

Bassanio. — This is no answer, thou unfeeling man, 
to excuse the current of thy cruelty. 

I should not emphasize no, but I 



OF ELOCUTION. x x x 

should emphasize man quite as strongly 
as the adjective unfeeling. The two 
words are equivalent to one single 
word — wretch or monster, for example 
— and consequently should be made 
about equally emphatic. In such 
cases, the last word always gets 
slightly the most stress. If the locu- 
tion be such that the words may be 
transposed without affecting the sense, 
it will be found that the word placed 
last will always be slightly the most em- 
phatic. Here is an example: " It 
seems that a law had been recently 
made that a tax on old bachelors pates 
should be laid." Now, transpose the 
three italicized words as we will — the 
pates of old bachelors, the pates of 
bachelors that are old — and we see 
that it is always the last word that is 
naturally somewhat the most emphatic. 

Shylock. — I am not bound to please thee with my 
answer. 



ii 4 



THE ESSENTIALS 



Our author marks no word in this 
speech for emphasis. I have always 
emphasized thee very strongly, and 
this, possibly, will be considered by 
most persons the more effective read- 
ing; but is it the more correct ? That, 
J am inclined to think, is more than 
doubtful. Should I ever play the 
scene again, I think I shall adopt the 
Canon's reading, speaking the speech 
in a sneering rather than in an angry 
tone. Treated in this manner, I 
should not be surprised to see the 
speech gain in effectiveness. 

Bassanio. — Do all men kill the things they do not 

love ? 

Were there any question of the 
things men do love, then the emphasis 
on not would be correct, but not other- 
wise. 

Shylock. — Hates any man the thing he would not 

kill? 

Neither not nor >£zY/ should I empha- 



OF ELOCUTION. 



"5 



size, but I should emphasize would 
very strongly. The thought is : Does 
any man hate a thing he would not 
like to kill, and this thought is very 
clearly brought out by emphasizing 
would. The two last words should be 
touched very lightly. 

Bassanio. — Every offence is not a hate at first. 
Shylock. — What! would'st thou have a serpent 
sting thee twice ? 

This reading is bettered, I think, by 
touching sting lightly. 

Antonio. — I pray you, think, you question with a 
Jew. 

The comma after think is the Can- 
on's. This reading seems to me utter- 
ly bad; it has, so far as I can see, 
neither rhyme nor reason to defend it. 
Jew is surely the word to emphasize. 

You may as well go stand upon the beach 
And bid the main flood bate his usual height; 

It is not probable that our author 
would have us make as much of stand 
as the italicizing would intimate. 



I 1 6 THE ESSENTIALS 

You may as well use question with the wolf, 
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb, 

I should not stop for an instant on 
question, and in the second line the 
only words I should emphasize are ewe 
and lamb. 

You may as well forbid the mountain pines 
To wag their high tops and to make no noise. 

Were I to mark these two lines for 
emphasis, I should probably italicize 
mountain pines and leave the rest to 
the reader's discretion. 

You may as well do anything most hard 

As seek to soften that (than which what's harder?) 

His Je wish heart; therefore I do beseech you 

Make no ??iore offers, use no further means, 

But, with all brief and plahi conveniency, 

Let me have judgment and the Jew his will. 

Here, to my thinking, is a great 
deal too much emphasizing. The 
reading here indicated cannot be 
other, it seems to me, than heavy, 
stilted, monotonous — in a word, un- 
natural. The words I should not em- 



OF ELOCUTION, 



117 



phasize are : do, most, what's therefore, 
no more, no further and all. 

Bassanio — For thy three thousand ducats here are 
six. 

SHYLOCK. — If ev'ry ducat in six thousand ducats 
Were in six parts, and every part a ducat : , 
I would not draw them; I would have my bond. 

If Shylock were asked if he would 
accept, then he would properly, natu- 
rally, emphasize the negative, but not 
otherwise. Draw, I take it, is the em- 
phatic word. 



VII. 



il The most offensive thing we encounter on the stage 
is a big voice with little intelligence behind it." 

Our English reader continues his 
marking of the emphatic words in the 
fourth act of "The Merchant of Ven- 
ice " thus: 

Duke. — How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendring 
none ?" 

If the thought is : How can you ex- 
pect any mercy, since you render no 



1 1 8 THE ESSENTIALS 

mercy ? then thou and rend 1 ring are 
properly the emphatic words of the 
line. 

Shylock. — What judgment shall I dread, doing no 
wrong ? 
You have among you many a purchased slave, 
Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules, 
You use in abject and in slavish parts, 
Because you bought them. 

Neither you nor use should I em- 
phasize ; but parts I should emphasize 
quite as strongly as any other word in 
the sentence. 

Shall /say to you, 
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs, 
Why sweat they under burdens ? 

This reading of the first clause seems 
to me to be " clean out of the way." 
Never have I erred more, or say is the 
word, and the only word, to emphasize. 
The Canon's reading I have often 
heard, and it may be the traditional 
reading, but tradition never yet has 
made anything right. There is no 
reason, good or bad, for emphasizing 



OF ELOCUTION. 119 

marry. The offensive lies not in the 
marrying, but in the thought of marry- 
ing the slaves to the owners' children. 

Let their beds 
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates 
Be seasoned with such viands ? 

Neither made nor seasoned nor such 
should, so far as I can see, be made 
the least emphatic. The first their I 
should emphasize as strongly as beds, 
nor should I treat the second their as 
an unemphatic word. It stands in 
contradistinction to your understood ; 
this we clearly see, if we supply the 
ellipses. 

You will answer, 
The slaves are ours. So do / answer you. 

Why emphasize you ? There is no 
suggestion that an answer shall, or 
may, come from anyone else. Here 
is a typical example of a non-natural, 
non-intelligent style of reading that is 
very prevalent. The art in it is on a 



1 2 o THE ESSENTIALS 

level with the art in the sign of the 
way-side inn. Neither the first you, 
slaves, nor so should be emphasized. 

The pound of flesh that I demand of him 

Is dearly bought ; 'tis mine, and I will have it. 

I should not pause an instant on de- 
mand, nor do I emphasize will, though 
this is the usual, and I believe the 
traditional, reading. To me, this treat- 
ment smacks too strongly of the bark- 
ing-dog style. Veritable resolve does 
not waste its strength in loud talk. 

If you deny me, fie upon your law ! 

There is no force in the decrees of Venice. 

I stand for judgment : answer, shall I have it ? 

In these three lines the learned 
Canon and I would have been of one 
mind had he not italicized no and de- 
crees. 

Duke. — Upon my power I may dismiss this court, 
Unless Bellario, a learne'd doctor, 
Whom I have sent for to determine this 
Come here to-day. 

To my thinking, the reading here 



OF ELOCUTION. I2 i 

indicated is about as wide of what it 
should be as it well could be. There 
is no question of anybody's else power, 
hence why emphasize my ? If there is 
anything to emphasize in the second 
line it surely is not unless and learned; 
it is rather Bellario and doctor. I 
should not emphasize sent. Its posi- 
tion in the line brings to it a little 
more breath than the other words get, 
determine excepted, but it cannot be 
said to be emphatic. 

Salarino. — My lord, here stays without 
A messenger with letters from the Doctor, 
New come from Padua. 

The most emphatic, or rather the 
only emphatic, word in the first line is 
-without. This, I think, clearly appears 
if we transpose the words thus : 

Without, my Lord, there stays a messenger. 
Duke. — Bring us the letters ; call the messenger. 

This is the treatment, I fancy, that 
this line has commonly received from 



1 2 2 THE ESSENTIALS 

time immemorial ; yet I like better the 
reading that makes well-nigh as much 
of letters and messenger as of bring and 
calL 

Bassanio. — Good cheer, Antonio ! What man, courage 
yet ! 
The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones and all. 
Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood. 

All readers, I think, emphasize what* 
It's not being italicized here is prob- 
ably due to an oversight. Neither lose 
nor one should I emphasize. 

Antonio. — /am a tainted w ether of the flock 
Meetest for death ; the weakest kind of fruit 
Drops earliest to the ground ; and so let me. 
You cannot better be employed, Bassanio, 
Than to live still, and write mine epitaph. 

Antonio has no thought here of in- 
stituting a comparison between him- 
self and anyone else. There is no 
such thought, for example, as I am the 
sickly wether of the flock ; you are 
the healthy wether of the flock, hence 
he would not emphasize the qualifying 



OF ELOCUTION. 



123 



word. In the first three lines of this 
speech, I should either not mark any 
word for emphasis, or I should mark, 
in addition to the words our author 
marks, the words wether, fruit, and 
ground. In neither case should I mark 
the first word, which, together with 
am, should be tipped over lightly. Epi- 
taph rather than write is the emphatic 
word. The line means, live on and 
epitaph me. If Antonio knew that 
Bassanio had already composed his 
epitaph, he would probably emphasize 
write, not otherwise. 



1 24 THE ESSENTIALS 



VIII. 

One's emphasis is the gauge of one's ability to un- 
derstand. Nothing else betrays our ignorance of 
the text like misplaced emphasis. One who empha- 
sizes correctly is more than likely to do justice to 
his author in other regards. The acumen that 
guides to a discreet and illuminative emphasis is 
more than likely to lead to a proper emotional ren- 
dering. — S. H. Clark. 

Canon Fleming goes from where we 
left him directly to Portia's entrance. 
He takes an occasional liberty with 
the text that I fail to see any reason 
for. I follow him, however, as he pro- 
ceeds, thus : 

Duke. — Give me your hand. You come from 

learn } d Be liar io ? 

Portia. — I do, my Lord. 
Duke. — You are welcome; take your place. 
Are you acquainted with the cause in question ? 

Marked or unmarked, no one could 
fail to read the first speech correctly ; 
but why change old to learned, and 
why mark the adjective for emphasis? 



OF ELOCUTION. 



125 



If " cause in question " — which it will 
be observed is not Shakespeare — 
means cause of this action, litigation or 
suit, then it would seem that cause, and 
not question, is the emphatic word. 

Portia. — I am informed throughly of the cause; 
Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew? 

Of these seven italicized words, I 
should emphasize only three — through- 
ly, merchant, and Jew. 

Duke. — Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth. 

Portia. — Is your name Shy lock? 

Shylock. — Shylock is my name. 

Portia. — You stand within his danger, do you not? 

Emphasize within or the second 
you / ? I fail to see why. 

Antonio. — Ay, so he says. 

Portia. — Do you confess the bond ? 

Antonio. — I do. 

So is unemphatic, as we see if we 
transpose the words, thus : He says so. 

Portia. — Then must the Jew be merciful. 

The context might make this the 



1 2 6 THE ESSENTIALS 

proper reading ; but it doesn't. As 
the Jew has not already been impor- 
tuned, so far as Portia knows, the 
proper reading emphasizes Jew and 
merciful. The thought Portia would 
express is simply this : Since you ac- 
knowledge the bond, there is nothing 
left for you but to throw yourself on 
the mercy of the Jew. 

Shylock. — On what compulsion must I ? Tell me 
that. 

I would not quarrel with this mark- 
ing, though I should have left tell un- 
italicized. The emphasis on must is 
not necessary to bring out the sense, 
but, by emphasizing it, Shylock may, if 
he treats it properly, very forcibly give 
utterance to the feeling aroused with- 
in him by the suggestion that he shall 
be merciful. Such cases as this are 
rarely met with. The naked thought 
nearly always determines. 

Portia. — The quality of mercy is not strained. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



127 



I say and, a la Meddle, I say it bold- 
ly : Nobody reads this line correctly. 
There is but one emphatic word in it 
— strained. All the other words 
should be tripped over quite lightly; 
yet, all the many Portias I have heard 
— save one of my own coaching — 
made at the least two, and usually 
three, words in the line emphatic. To 
make any word in the line emphatic 
tut strained is to suggest a meaning 
not intended. The first three words 
add nothing to the sense, nothing. 
They are there simply as padding, 
to fill out the line, or as rhetorical 
embellishment, yet the majority of 
readers — good, easy souls! make 
quality quite as emphatic as any other 
word in the line, and often more 
emphatic than the word that alone 
should be emphasized. Strange that 
so few readers deem it all necessary to 
think ! There is more in the art of 



128 THE ESSENTIALS 

reading than the mere firing of sound 
at words, few as there are that seem to 
think so. 

If it were anywhere said that mercy 
is strained, we should properly empha- 
size not, and should not emphasize 
strained. 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest ; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes 
* Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown. 

Not place, but beneath, is the em- 
phatic word. Take what word we please 
instead of beneath — above, chosen, de- 
signated — and we find that it is the 
limiting, defining word that properly 
gets the stress. It is only the heavy, 
monotonous, elephantine style of de- 
livery, which our author would seem 
to sympathize with, that would dwell 
on blesseth. In the sixth line, better is 
the least and crown the most emphatic 
word. This line usually gives the 



OF ELOCUTION. 



129 



learner more trouble than any other 
line in the whole speech. There are 
thoughtful readers who contend that 
better is the only emphatic word in the 
line, but their reasons have always 
seemed to me quite valueless. 

1. His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 

2. The attribute to awe and majesty 

3. Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings 

4. But mercy is above this sceptred sway. 

5. It is enthroned in the hea?'ts of kings ; 

6. It is an attribute to God himself ; 

7. And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 

8. When viercy seasons justice. 

In the first of these eight lines, 
force is not at all emphatic, nor is at- 
tribute in the second. In the third 
line, kings is properly slightly more 
emphatic than either dread or fear. 
The thought is made clearer to many 
by changing the to our. In the fourth 
line, not sway, but sceptred y is the 
word to emphasize. A little study en- 
ables us to see that the sceptre's sway 
is contrasted with mercy's sway, force 



*3° 



THE ESSENTIALS 



or power ; it matters not which word 
we use. Enthroned, in the fifth line, 
should be touched very lightly. Its 
long, sonorous o is very beguiling, but 
it is only the unthinking bowwower, 
who reads for sound, not sense, that 
would dwell on it. It, whose anteced- 
ent is mercy, is properly as emphatic 
as hearts. This somewhat more clear- 
ly appears if we change it to that, 
which, though it be Shakespeare, I do 
not hesitate to intimate would better 
the diction. The change would give 
the reader a much better vowel sound 
to deal with. In the seventh line, we 
should trip lightly over them, and 
should emphasize God 's fully as 
strongly as earthly. This is made 
clear by supplying the ellipsis, power, 
after Gods. The sentiment, rather 
than the sense, makes seasons about as 
emphatic as the words immediately be- 
fore and after it. 



OF ELOCUTION. 1 3 1 

Therefore, Jew, 
Though justice be thy plea , consider this 
That in the course of justice none of us 
Should see salvation. 

Neither justice, plea, nor consider 
are at all emphatic. The emphatic 
words are be and this. 

We do pray for mercy, 
And that same prayer doth fca<-£ us all to render 
The afcafr of mercy. 

Neither teach nor render should be 
emphasized. All, on the contrary, 
should be made very emphatic. 

I have spoke thus much 
To mitigate the. justice of thy plea, 
Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice 
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there. 

In order to make the words spoke 
thus much say what they are intended 
to say they must all be spoken with 
equal stress. Spoken as our author 
marks them they suggest the thought 
that something else will be spoken for 
some other purpose. Not infrequent- 



132 



THE ESSENTIALS 



ly we hear a Portia emphasize spoke 
and trip over the other two words, in- 
timating that she is going to sing, or 
chant, or write something else for 
some other purpose. The one read- 
ing is as bad as the other. Plea is un- 
emphatic. The comma after which is 
mine. I do not find it in any one of 
the three editions within my present 
reach. The clause being parenthetic, 
the comma seems to me to be neces- 
sary. Strict, court and Venice are 
equally emphatic. To emphasize 
strict only is to say that there is at the 
least one other court that is not strict. 
At the best, strict is little else than 
padding. The line is just as forcible 
without it ; it serves chiefly to fill out 
the line. So far as sense and force 
are concerned, one word, court, would 
suffice. In reading the last line the 
question of climax should be consid- 
ered. Read for the thought only, the 



OF ELOCUTION. 



*33 



speech ends tamely. The necessary 
elevation is attained by dwelling on 
needs and 'gainst and making a slight 
pause before and after 'gainst. 

This speech is read in every con- 
cievable manner. The Portias that I 
have seen, almost without an excep- 
tion, have gone at it in a pell-mell, 
haphazard, slapdash way that showed 
that they depended on their voice- 
making apparatus rather than on the 
thought, on vociferation rather than 
on Shakespeare, for any effect they 
might produce. They were rewarded 
with the plaudits of the many ; the 
censure of the few did not concern 
them, and — they were happy. 



134 



THE ESSENTIALS 



IX. 



" He that reads really well utters the words with 
the care that the musician exercises in playing or 
singing." 

I occasionally meet a person who 
seems to think that the exercise of the 
intelligence in reading- is fatal to what 
an actor I met, a day or two ago, called 
spontaneity, by which I understood 
him to mean naturalness. He seemed 
to incline strongly to the opinion that 
emphasis, pause, and inflection are 
matters of little importance, and that a 
reader is likely to be stilted and non- 
natural in proportion to the extent he 
allows himself to consider the question 
of technique. All that is necessary, 
according to these people, if I under- 
stand them, is to know the words and 
to speak them with earnestness. If 
they are right, then reading is only a 
matter of memory and unction; in 



OF ELOCUTION. 



135 



other words, of memory and unguided 
fuss and fury. To these people, who 
are commonly actors (self-declared), I 
would say, with as much respect as I 
can muster for the occasion, that if 
they would but give half as much time 
to the learning of their business, as the 
average chorus-singer or clog-dancer 
gives to learning his, they might possi- 
bly modify their opinion with regard to 
the value of study. There are many 
of us that are never more glib, never 
more confident, never more dogmatic 
than when we talk about something 
we know nothing about. 

But let us return to Canon Fleming 
and " The Merchant of Venice" : 

Shylock. — My deeds upon my head ! I crave [the 
law] 

The penalty and forfeit of my bond. 

We all agree, I think, with regard 
to the meaning of the first sentence, 
which is this : For my deeds I will be 



I3 6 THE ESSENTIALS 

answerable. Does our author's em- 
phasis make the words express this 
thought? I think not. His emphasis, 
to my seeing, makes the words say: 
My deeds upon my head, and not on 
any other part of my body. To make 
the words say what they are intended 
to say, it is necessary, I am confident, 
to emphasize the second my as strong- 
ly as the first, and this, if I do not err, 
is the way the sentence is usually read. 
Whether the learned Canon gives us 
the full line or not, crave is not em- 
phatic; it is the thing craved, the law, 
that we should emphasize. The next 
line, with its emphatic words, stands in 
elocutionary apposition to law. 

Portia. — Is he not able to discharge the money ? 

Bassanio. — Yes, here I tender it for him in the 
court ! 
Yea, twice the sum: if that will not suffice, 
I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, 
On forfeit of my hands, my head, my feet [heart]. 
If this will not suffice, it must appear 
That malice bears down truth. 



OF ELOCUTION. 137 

I fail to see any defense for the 
emphasis on tender in the first line, 
not in the second, not, suffice or appear 
in the fifth, or for bear or down in the 
sixth. On the other hand, I should 
emphasize sum in the second line quite 
as strongly as twice. If Bassanio said, 
for example, I not only tender him the 
sum we owe him, but twice the sum, 
our author's emphasis would be cor- 
rect, not otherwise. In the third line 
I should emphasize the last three 
words. The feet of the fourth line is 
a new reading to me. Possibly it is a 
misprint. 

And I beseech you 
Wrest once the law to your authority, 
To do a. great right do a little wrong, 
And curb this crtiel devil of his will. 

The emphasizing of wrest and once 
smacks of the kind of elocution that 
tries to get an effect out of every word. 
It reminds one of those speakers that 
make up in sound for what they lack 



138 THE ESSENTIALS 

in sense. Read in this way, the line 
loses much of its proper effect. All 
the words but two should come " trip- 
pingly from the tongue." Why em- 
phasize this in the last line? There is 
no question of any other devil. 

Portia. — It must not be. There is no power ia 
Venice 
Can alter a decree established 
'Twill be recorded for a precedent, 
And many an error, by the same example* 
Will rush into the state. It can not be. 

The most emphatic word in the first 
sentence is the last. If it had been 
said that it must be, then not should 
be the only emphatic word. If it had 
been said that it cannot be, then must 
would be the only emphatic word. As 
it is, three words are emphasized about 
equally in order to give the delivery 
the elevation that the situation and 
sentiment demands. For the same 
reason, many and error in the fourth 
line should be emphasized. Neither 



OF ELOCUTION. 



139 



no, power, alter nor decree should be 
emphasized; Venice, on the contrary, 
should be emphasized quite as strong- 
ly as any other word in the speech. 

Shylock. — A Daniel come to judgment ! Yea, a. 

Daniel ! 
ivise young judge ! How do I honor thee. 

Of these nine italicized words, I 
should emphasize only five — Daniel, 
yea, Daniel, wise and honor. 

Portia. — I pray you, let me /^upon the bond. 

I should emphasize pray quite as 
strongly as look, and should not em- 
phasize bond. 

Shylock. — Here 'tis most reverend doctor, here it is. 

Shylock's eagerness is ill indicated 
by all this italicizing ; and then, read 
according to the marking, Shylock 
cannot get the effect out of the word 
revere7id that is within his easy reach 
If he emphasizes this word only. 

Portia. — Shylock! There's thrice thy money offered 
thee. 



140 



THE ESSENTIALS 



One word only, thrice, is all that, 
in my judgment, should be made at all 
emphatic in this line. The exclamation 
point is our author's. I doubt wheth- 
er it will be found elsewhere. A com- 
ma is the usual punctuation. 

Shylock. — An oath, an oath ! I have an oath in 
heaven : 
Shall I lay perjury upon my soul? 
No, not for Venice. 

The effect is weakened, rather than 
heightened, by making the third oath 
emphatic. I should italicize not rather 
than no of the last line. Both words 
should be spoken with a good deal of 
force. 

Portia. — Why, this bond is forfeit, 

And lawfully, by this the Jew may claim 
A pound of Jlesh be by him cut off 
Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful. 
Take thrice thy money. Bid me tear the bond. 

In these five lines, our Author 
would emphasize sixteen words ; I 
should emphasize only nine — -forfeit y 



OF ELOCUTION. 



141 



lawfully ', pound, flesh, nearest, heart, 
merciful, take, and tear. " Take thrice 
thy money, means, simply, Accept their 
offer. Why emphasize &wdf since there 
is no question of tearing anything 
else ? 

Shylock. — When it is paid according to the tenor. 
It doth appear you are a worthy judge; 
You /£;z<?7£> the law, your exposition 
Hath been most sou?id. I charge you by the law, 
Whereof you are a well deserving pillar y 
Proceed to judgment. By my jam/ I swear 
There is no power in the tongue of man 
To alter me. I jfoy ^*r* on my bond. 

In the first line of this speech, a 
Shylock should not only make clear the 
fact that the bond must be " paid accord- 
ing to the tenor/' but in order to get 
all the effect out of the line there is in 
it, he must also emphasize the fact 
that nothing but a pound of Antonio's 
flesh will be accepted. This he does 
best by a peculiar, indescribable hand- 
ling of the word according which re- 
sults in making it the most emphatic 



142 



THE ESSENTIALS 



word in the line. In the third line, I 
should emphasize law as strongly as 
know. If it were a question as to 
whether Portia does or does not know 
the law, the case would be very differ- 
ent. If the thought were, for example, 
you know the law but you are not will- 
ing to be guided by it. In the fourth 
line I should again emphasize law. 
Our author's reading of the seventh 
line does not express the thought the 
line is intended to convey, which is, 
simply, there is no power in man to 
alter me; the other words serve for 
little else than for poetical embellish- 
ment. The effect of the last sentence 
is heightened by dwelling on on as 
much as on the two preceding words. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



143 



I hold every man a debtor to his profession from 
the which, as men do of course seek to receive coun- 
tenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor 
themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and orna- 
ment thereto. — Bacon. 

Canon Fleming continues to intimate 
how he would have the Trial Scene in 
" The Merchant of Venice " read in 
this wise : 

Antonio. — Most heartily I do beseech the court 

To give the. judgment. 
Portia. — Why then thus it is ; 

You must, prepare your bosom for his knife. 
Shylock. — O noble judge ! O excellent young man ! 

To my thinking, our author's reading 
of these three speeches is much bet- 
tered by spending no more breath on 
the words beseech, court, and prepare 
than is necessary to articulate them 
distinctly. I certainly should not em- 
phasize them. 



i 4 4 



THE ESSENTIALS 



Portia. — For the intent and purpose of the law 
Hath full relation to the penalty. 
Which here appeareth due upon the bond. 

It would seem to me that law is 
scarcely, if at all, less emphatic than 
either intent or purpose. What Shy- 
lock has just said about Portia's know- 
ing the law does not effect the reading 
of the line. Penalty should certainly 
not be made more emphatic than here 
and appeareth, hence I should italicize 
all three or none. The wisdom of 
marking bond for emphasis is ques- 
tionable. No reader, I think, would 
fail to give it all the prominence de- 
sirable. 

Shylock. — 'Tis very true ! O wise and upright judge ! 
How muck more elder art than thy looks. 

I should counsel the reader to make 
quite as much of true as of very ; and, 
in the second line, I would intimate 
that I would have him make a great deal 
more of much than of any other word 
in the line by leaving all the other 



OF ELOCUTION. 



H5 



words in Roman. All the words, to 
my thinking, after this one strong em- 
phasis, should be enunciated quite 
trippingly. Here, as always, I aim 
only at what I think will heighten the 
effect. Nature is a niggard and does 
not expend her energies where she 
will not be rewarded. 

Portia. — Therefore lay bare your bosom. 
Shylock. — Ay, his breast. 

So says the bond: — doth it not, noble judge?. 

Nearest his hea?'t. Those are the very words. 

Neither doth nor judge should I em- 
phasize, but I should emphasize not. 
The long o of noble makes it possible 
for the exultant Shylock to voice his 
joy to the full. No utterance con- 
ceivable of judge would aid him herein 
a whit. Why emphasize those? If 
there be a reason, I cannot see it. 
The bare of Portia's line should be 
emphasized. 

Portia. — It is so. Are there balance here to weigh 
Wlz flesh? 



1 46 THE ESSENTIALS 

Shylock. — I have them ready. 

Portia. — Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your 
charge. 

To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death. 

Neither is, flesh, stop, nor bleed should 
I emphasize ; and had I marked your 
for emphasis, I should also have marked 
charge. 

Shylock. — Is it so nominated in the bond? 
Portia. — It is not so expressed; but what of that? 

'T 'were good you do so much for charity. 
Shylock. — I cannot find it. 'Tis not in the bond. 
Portia. — Come, merchant, have you anything to 
say? 

I should not italicize not, good, or 
anything. Say, it seems to me, rather 
than anything, is the word to mark, if 
one would mark something. Some- 
times the line is read with the emphasis 
on you — a reading easily defended. 

Antonio. — But little ; I am armed amd well prepared. 
Give me your hand, Bassanio ; fare you 

well ! 
Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you. 
For herein Fortune shows herself more kind 
Than is her custom. 



OF ELOCUTION. 147 

I see no reason for making fallen 
emphatic. If the word were come, 
would anyone think of emphasizing it? 
Herein, to my thinking, is the most em- 
phatic word in the fourth line, unless it 
be kind, which is very much more em- 
phatic than more. If we had as kind 
anywhere, then more kind would be 
correct. 

It is still her use 
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, 
To view, with hollow eye and wrinkled brow, 
An age of poverty ; from which lingering penance 
Of such a misery doth she cut me off. 

I should italicize neither use, outlive > 
hollow, wrinkled, lingering, misery, cut, 
nor off* but I should italicize eye, brozu, 
poverty, such, and me. I should hope 
and expect to get a better result than 
our author by marking the lines thus : 

It is still her use 
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, 
To view, with hollow eye, and wrinkled brow, 
An age of poverty ; from which lingering penance 
Of such a misery doth she cut me off. 



1 48 THE ESSENTIALS 

It is quite safe, I think, to leave the 
secondary emphases to take care of 
themselves. I strongly suspect that 
our author often employs rules in de- 
termining what words should be em- 
phasized. If he does, I incline to the 
opinion that he succeeds no better 
with them than others have succeeded 
with them. It is safe to say that the 
average rule-user goes wrong more fre- 
quently than he goes right. The rule 
of gumption is the only rule that is 
worth a fig in determining what words 
should be emphasized 

Commend me to your honorable wife ; 
, Tell her the process of Antonio's end ; 
Say how I loved you : speak me fair in death , 
And when the tale is told bid her be judge 
Whether Bassanio had not once a love. 

I question the wisdom of marking 
any word in the first two of these five 
lines for emphasis, there being no em- 
phasis that is at all salient. If honor- 
able, however, is marked, then wife 



OF ELOCUTION. 



149 



should also be marked, else we might 
argue that we have in the reading an 
intimation that Bassanio is a polyga- 
mist. In the third line I should not 
emphasize say or speak. By empha- 
sizing bid in the fourth line instead of 
her, we spoil the rhythm of an other- 
wise perfect line. There can be no 
doubt, I think, that Shakespeare em- 
phasized her. 

Repent not you that you shall lose your friend. 
And he repents not that he pay s your debt ; 
For, if the Jew do cut but deep enough, 
I'll pay it instantly with all my heart. 

Our author's reading of the first 
three of these four lines seems to me 
to be very bad indeed. In fact, I don't 
see how it could easily be worse. The 
most offensive thing in it is the empha- 
sis on and the pause after for. The 
emphasizing of the ors and for's, and 
the particles generally, is a character- 
istic of that species of reader known 



i5o 



THE ESSENTIALS 



in stage parlance as the scene chewer. 
There is not a syllable in the four lines 
that should be touched more lightly 
than the first syllable of the third line, 
I should read these lines thus : 

Repent not you that you shall lose your friend \ 
And he repents not that he pays yotir debt ; 
For if the Jew do cut but deep enough, 
I'll pay it instantly with all my heart. 



XI. 



" There cannot be two right ways to read a sen- 
tence any more than there can be two right solutions 
to a mathematical problem. There can be only one 
reading that fully brings out the thought." 

Canon Fleming proceeds, in his 
"Art of Reading and Speaking," which 
he dedicates, " to all who desire to be 
cultured readers and speakers of our 
mother tongue, " to mark the emphatic 
words in the Trial Scene of " The 
Merchant of Venice " in this wise : 

Bassanio — Antonio, I am married to a wife 
Which is as dear to me as life itself ; 



OF ELOCUTION. I5I 

But life itself, my wife, and all the world, 
Are not with me esteemed above thy life; 
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them #// 
Here to MiV devil to deliver you. 

It is a mistake, it seems to me, to 
mark wife in the first line for emphasis, 
as I do not think that more should be 
made of it than of married. Not life 
but itself in the second line is the em- 
phatic word. Words ending in self 
are used in most cases for emphasis 
only; they seldom add to the thought. 
Commonly the word preceding should 
also be emphasized, but here we have 
an exception ; the emphasis on itself 
suffices. If the not in the fourth line 
contradicted a preceding affirmative, 
it would be proper to emphasize it. 
The emphatic words in this line are 
esteemed, thy, and life. The first of 
the three, however, may safely be left 
to take care of itself. Why emphasize 
this ? There is no question of any 
other devil. Deliver, not yotc, is the 



152 



THE ESSENTIALS 



emphatic word. Put any word we 
please in the place of deliver — rescue 
or release, for example — and we find it 
naturally gets the emphasis, I should 
mark this speech thus : 

Antonio, I am married to a wife 
Which is as dear to me as life itself ; 
But life itself, my wife, and all the world. 
Are not with me esteemed above thy life; 
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all, 
Here to this devil to deliver you. 
Portia — Your wife would give you little thanks 
If she were by to hear you make the offer. 

Neither wife, little, nor hear should 
I emphasize, but I should emphasize 
thanks. If we had not the last three 
words of the second line, hear would 
get the emphasis that now goes to 
offer. 

Gratiaxo — /have a wife whom I protest I love . 
I would she were in heaven, so she could 
E?itreat some power to change this currish Jew. 

In these three lines our author marks 
ten words for emphasis ; I should mark 



OF ELOCUTION. 



153 



six, — the first and the third /, heaven, 
change, currish and Jew. 

Nerissa. — 'Tis well you offer it behind her back; 
The wish would make else an unquiet home. 

Here again, I should mark only half 
as many words for emphasis as our 
author — back, else and home. Else, to 
my thinking, is the most emphatic 
word in the speech. With the empha- 
sis on well I should not quarrel. 

Shylock. — These be the Christian husbands ! I have a 
daughter ; 
Would any of the stock of Barabbas 
Had been her husband rather than a Christian ! 
We trifle time: I pray thee pursue sentence. 

In the first line I should emphasize 
neither husbands nor I. Our author 
emphasizes /, possibly because Bas- 
sanio and Gratiano have said they 
have wives. If this be his reason, 
which is the only reason I can see, I 
do not think it sufficient. In the 
second line, I should not emphasize 
either would or stock. Nor in the 



1 5 4 THE ESSENTIALS 

third line should I emphasize husband.. 
The caesura, as is frequently the case, 
makes the word sufficiently prominent. 

Portia. — A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine. 

The court awards it and the law doth give it. 
Shylock. — Most rightful judge. 

Portia. — And you must cut this Jlesh from off his 
breast: 
The law allows it and the court awards it. 
Shylock. — Most learne'd judge ! A sentence! Come, 
prepare! 

In the first line, I should not empha- 
size merchant ' s; nor in the fourth line, 
flesh. Judge I should not emphasize 
in either instance ; all the emphasis 
should go to the adjectives. 

Portia. — I. Tarry a little : There is something else. 

2. This bond — doth give thee here — no jot 

of blood ; 

3. The words expressly are a pound oi flesh : 

4. Then take thy bond ; take thou thy 

pound oi flesh ; 

5. But, in the cutting it if thou dost shed 

6. One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and 

goods 

7. Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate 

8. Unto the state of Venice. 



OF ELOCUTION, 



155 



In a foot-note our author says : 
4i This passage to be read very slowly 
and deliberately." Herein I think his 
dramatic instinct is greatly at fault. 
Read as he advises, the speech would 
not produce half its possible effect. 
Nor would it produce half its possible 
effect emphasized as he emphasizes it ; 
it would be wholly wanting in climax, 
which it is far from wanting if the last 
two lines are properly spoken. 

Neither little nor something in the 
first line should have any emphasis 
whatever ; all the words but tarry and 
else should be gone over quite trip- 
pingly. Then the first six words of 
the second line should be spoken in 
like manner, a pause being made after 
them of sufficient length to enable the 
reader to take a full, deep breath, 
which should be mainly expended on 
the word blood — the turning point in 
Shylock's fortunes. In the fourth line, 



I5 6 THE ESSENTIALS 

I should emphasize take in both clauses 
very strongly, but should not empha- 
size pound. In the fifth line, I should 
ignore the first comma, since observ- 
ing it retards the movement necessary 
to produce the effect the speech should, 
and always will, produce if properly 
handled. Shed, one and Christian 
should not be emphasized. Emphasiz- 
ing these words takes from the snap, 
the movement, the earnestness — in a 
word from the naturalness — of the de- 
livery, which always has been, and for- 
evermore will be, the only legitimate 
thing to consider in making one's elo- 
cution effective. But it is in the last 
two lines that our author's reading of 
this speech is singularly weak. He 
leaves unmarked the two most em- 
phatic words in the whole eight lines, 
the two words that the skillful Portia 
specially depends on for her climax, 
and for the round of applause that she 



OF ELOCUTION. 



157 



is sure to get — confiscate and state. 
To emphasize laws in the seventh line 
would be to suggest a meaning not in- 
tended. The whole clause should be 
tripped over lightly. Before and after 
the word confiscate, the reader should 
take a full breath ; the first he should 
expend on confiscate, the second almost 
wholly on state. It matters little 
whether the last two words are heard 
or not. Here is the way I should 
mark the speech : 

Tarry a little; there is something else. 
This bond doth give thee here — no jot of blood. 
The words expressly are — a pound of flesh. 
Then take thy bond ; take thou thy pound of flesh , 
But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed 
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate — 
Unto the state of Venice. 
Gratiano. — O upright judge ! Mark, Jew ! A learned 
judge. 

To emphasize so much is to empha- 
size nothing at all. To my thinking, 



158 THE ESSENTIALS 

upright \ mark, and learndd are the 
only emphatic words. 

Shylock. — Is that the law? 

Portia. — Thyself shall see the act, 

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured 
Thou shalt have justice, more than thou 
desirest. 

I should ignore the comma after for, 
should emphasize urgest, should trip 
lightly over assured, and should not 
emphasize justice in the third line. 
Urge and have seem to me to stand in 
direct contradistinction. 

GratiANO. — O learned judge ! Mar k, Jew ! A. learned 



Three words only should I empha- 
size in this line — learned, mark, and 
learndd. 

Shylock. — I take his offer, then : pay the bond thrice, 

And let the Christian go. 
Bassanio. — Here is the money. 

I should certainly not emphasize 
bond, nor should I mark anything in 
Bassanio's speech for emphasis. 



OF ELOCUTION. 



159 



Portia, — Soft! 

The Jew shall have all justice ; soft! no haste ! 
He shall have nothing but the penalty. 

Nothing, not but, is the word to em- 
phasize in this last line. Indeed noth- 
ing is the most emphatic word in the 
speech. 

Gratiano. — O Jew! an upright judge! a learned 
judge! 

The two adjectives seem to me to be 
the only words that should be made at 
all emphatic. ^ 



l6o THE ESSENTIALS 



XII. 



Incorrect emphasis always preverts the sense, and 
to the hearer it is like directing a traveler in the 
wrong road. — Bronson. 

Portia. — 

1. Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh, 

2. Shed thou' no blood ; nor cut thou less nor more, 

3. But just a pound of flesh. If thou tak'st more 

4. Or less than a just pound — be it but so much 

5. As make it light or heavy, in the substance, 

6. On the division of the twentieth part 

7. Of <w£ poor scruple ; nay, if the scale do tar?z 

8. But in the estimation of a hair — 

9. Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate. 

If I were to mark any word in the 
first line of this speech for emphasis, it 
would be the first. The words our 
author marks should not, it seems to 
me, be made at all emphatic. The ef- 
fect of the comma after therefore em- 
phasizes it sufficiently, which was 
doubtless our author's thought when 
he left it unitalicized. 



OF ELOCUTION. 161 

In the second line I should empha- 
size only three words— -blood, less, and 
more. The emphasizing of shed and 
cut seems to me utterly indefensible. 
Here, it seems to me, is as good an 
example as we could well have of that 
unreasonable, trip-hammer delivery 
that has brought the very name of 
elocution into disfavor. To read after 
this fashion, a modicum of intelligence 
and a pair of stilts for the voice are 
the sum of all that is required. 

In the third line, in addition to the 
words italicized, I should emphasize 
flesh, and that, too, much more strong- 
ly than any other word in the line. The 
reason: Shakespeare, I take it, with 
the words, " But just a pound of flesh/' 
imposes on Portia the task of making 
supremely prominent a very important 
fact that does not appear in the naked 
words, namely, the fact that this pound 
of flesh must be made up of flesh only 



1 6 2 THE ESSEN TIALS 

— no blood, no bone, nothing- but flesh. 
This is the letter of the bond; the 
spirit of the bond, it is conceded, Portia 
studiously ignores. Now this thought, 
which adds greatly to the import and 
effectiveness of the half dozen words, 
can only be brought out by a peculiar 
and very strong emphasis on flesh. 

In the fourth line, I should not em- 
phasize just, so or much, but I should 
emphasize pound. The word just, it 
will be perceived, can be dispensed 
with without any loss to the thought 
or to the effect. 

The most emphatic word in the fifth, 
sixth, and seventh lines is division, 
which, it would seem, our author would 
not have us emphasize. The thought, 
if I do not err, is this: " Makes it eith- 
er light or heavy in the whole, or even 
in apart, of the twentieth of a scruple, " 
which appears only when division is 
strongly emphasized. 



OF ELOCUTION. ^3 

In the seventh and eighth lines, I 
should not emphasize scale, turn, but or 
estimation; poor, however, I should 
emphasize as strongly as the words be- 
fore and after it. 

There might be something in the 
context that would justify the em- 
phasis on all in the ninth line; as it is, 
however, the emphatic word is goods. 

Gratiano. — A second Daniel ! A Daniel, Jew ! 
Xoiu y infidel, I have thee on the hip. 

In the first line, I should emphasize 
neither second nor Jew. If Gratiano, in 
the second line, would intimate that 
the Jew has had his opponents on the 
hip, which I think is the traditional 
rendering, he should not emphasize 
hip; if this be not his thought, he 
should trip over thee and emphasize 
hip. In neither case, should both words 
be emphasized. If Gratiano would 
taunt Shylock with being an infidel, 



1 64 THE ESSENTIALS 

the word infide l 'should be emphasized, 
not otherwise. 

Portia. — Why doth the Jew pause ? Take thy for- 

feiture. 
Shylock. — Give me my principal and. let me go. 
Bassanio. — I have it ready for thee. Here it is. 
Portia. — He hath refused it in the open cotirt. 

He shall have merely justice, and his bond, 
Gratiano. — A Daniel, still say I ; a second Daniel! 

I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. 
SHYLOCK. — Shall I not have barely ray principal? 
Portia. — Thou shalt have nothingbut the forfeiture, 

To be so taken at thy peril, Jew. 
Shylock. — Why then, the Devil give him good oi it! 

I'll stay no longer question. 

My marking of these eight speeches 
would not differ materially from that 
of our author. Why in the first speech, 
that and word in the fifth, and good 
in the last I should, probably, have 
left unmarked. In marking the em- 
phatic words of prose or verse, it is 
better to err on the side of marking 
too few words than on the side of too 
many. I am by no means sure, for 
example, that as devil, in the last 



OF ELOCUTION. \ 65 

speech, is so very much more emphatic 
than any other word in the speech, 
the italicizing of the one word would 
not suffice. 

Portia. 

1. Tarry, Jew: 

2. The law hath yet another hold on you. 

3. It is e7iacted in the laws of Venice* 

4. If it be proved against an alien, 

5. That by direct or indirect attempts, 

6. He seek the life of any citizen. 

7. The party, 'gainst the which he doth contrive, 

8. Shall seize one half his goods: the other half 

9. Comes to the privy coffer of the state ; 

10. And the offender's life lies in the mercy 

11. Of the Duke ojily 'gainst all other voice, 

12. In which predicament, I say, thou stand' st, 

13. For it appears, by manifest proceeding, 

14. That, indirectly, and directly too, 

15. Thou hast contrived against the very life 

16. Of the defendant , and thou hast incurred 

17. The danger formerly by me rehearsed; 

iS. Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke. 

In this speech our author empha- 
sizes fifty words. I should emphasize 
only thirty-two, twenty-nine that he 
emphasized and three that he does 
not emphasize — 'gainst and which, 



iG6 THE ESSENTIALS 

in the seventh line, and formerly, in 
the seventeenth. I, then, so far as 
emphasis is concerned, should read the 
speech essentially thus : 

1. Tarry, Jew: 

2. The law hath yet another hold on you. 

3. It is enacted in the laws of Venice, 

4. If it be proved against an alien, 

5. That by direct or indirect attempts, 

6. He seek the life of any citizen, 

7. The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive, 

8. Shall seize one half his goods : the other half 

9. Comes to to the privy coffer of the state ; 

10. And the offender's life lies in the mercy 

11. Of the Duke only, 'gainst all other voice. 

12. In which predicament, I say, thou stand 'st. 

13. For it appears, by ??tanifest proceeding, 

14. That indirectly and directly too, 

15. Thou hast contrived against the very life 

16. Of the defendant, and thou hast incurred 

17. The danger formerly by me rehearsed; 

18. Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke. 

There is a point of law in this 
speech, which none of the many Por- 
tias I have seen seemed to see. Not 
even Miss Terry, whom I have seen 
three times in the part, seems to see 



OF ELOCUTION. 167 

it. If she does see it, she, like the 
others, fails to make it appear, which, 
at the least is very good evidence that 
she does not see it. If we look at the 
language at all closely, it readily ap- 
pears that under the Venetian law it 
was one thing if an alien sought the 
life of an alien, or a citizen sought the 
life of a citizen, and quite another 
thing if an alien sought the life of a 
citizen. Here, as ever, if one would 
read well, the first condition is to 
know what the language means. 

It will be seen that in the seventh 
line, our author emphasizes party and 
that I do not. The thought is brought 
out, not by emphasizing the noun, but 
by emphasizing the qualifying, limit- 
ing, adjectival clause that follows it. 
Would anyone think of emphasizing 
the noun, if we resolve the limiting 
clause into one word thus : The en- 
dangered, or threatened party; or say, 



1 68 THE ESSENTIALS 

the party threatened? It is really 
thoughts that we emphasize, not 
words ; and when a clause expresses 
an emphatic thought, a thought 
that perhaps might be expressed with 
a single word, the stress is about 
equal on the principal words, the last 
word, usually, if we are true to nature, 
being made slightly the most promi- 
nent. In the reading, party becomes 
quite prominent, not however because 
we emphasize it, but because of the 
rhetorical pause that naturally follows 
it. Our author's comma should not be 
there ; we should not separate nouns 
from words or clauses that limit or 
qualify them. The pause after party 
is purely rhetorical. 

Students of the art of reading will, 
I think, find it interesting, and per- 
haps profitable, to study this speech 
carefully. Though they may not 
agree with either Canon Fleming, or 



OF ELOCUTION. ^9 

with me, a careful study of the speech 
should tend to convince them, if not 
already convinced, that to read well 
one must do more than simply famil- 
iarize one's-self with the words. 

XIII. 

If we would read well, we must learn how. — Canon 
Fleming. 

There are those who think elocution worthless, be- 
cause they have not studied it ; and they will not 
study it, because they think it worthless. — Alfred 
Ayres. 

Our English author continues thus : 

Duke. — That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit 
I pardon thee thy life bef ore thou ask it. 
For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's ; 
The other half comes to the general state 
Which humbleness may drive into a fine. 

In the marking of this speech, our 
author does not appear at his best. 
Why emphasize our ? There is no 
question of difference between any but 
the Duke and the Jew. The thought 



I jo THE ESSENTIALS 

being the difference between us, we 
have only to emphasize difference and 
spirit to bring it out. 

In the second line, I see but two em- 
phatic words — life and ask. 

In the third line, I should emphasize 
wealth and Antonio s. If a discussion as 
to what should be done with Shylock's 
fortune had taken place and this were 
the resulting decision, our author's em- 
phasis would be correct. Portia simply 
tells what the law is ; no discussion is 
even suggested. 

Why emphasize general in the fourth 
line ? There is no question anywhere 
of any private state. Indeed, general 
adds nothing to the thought ; it's used 
only to pad out the line. Being used, 
it may be said to coalesce with state in 
expressing what state would fully ex- 
press unaided, and thus come in for a 
sort of subordinate emphasis ; the 
strong emphasis properly goes to the 



OF ELOCUTION, 171 

noun. I see no reason for emphasizing 
half. 

If the Duke means to say in the last 
line, Which humbleness may % possibly, 
which I think he does, then may, by a 
good deal, is probably the most em- 
phatic word in the whole speech. I 
should italicizey^. 

Portia. — Ay, for the state ; not for Antonio. 

In the last clause, Antonio, if I do 
not err, is the word to emphasize. 

Shylock. — Nay, take my life and all; pardon not 
that : 
You take my house when you do take the prop 
That doth sustain my house ; you take my lift 
When you do take the mea7is whereby I live. 

The emphasis on take, in the first 
line, is indefensible. If the Duke had 
said Shylock's life should be taken, 
Shylock could say, for example, Very 
well, proceed, take my life. As it is, 
Shylock virtually says this : If you 
take my goods, take my life and all. 



I 7 2 THE ESSENTIALS 

I should mark the last words of the 
last line thus : means — whereby — I- — live. 

It is more difficult to realize the pos- 
sibilities of this speech than it is to 
realize the possibilities of any other 
speech in the whole play. It is doubt- 
ful whether four lines could be found 
anywhere that are susceptible of being" 
made more pathetic. 

Portia. — What mercy can you render him, Antonio ? 
Gratiano. — A halter gratis ; nothing else, for 
Heaven's sake. 

I can see no reason for emphasizing 
either mercy or nothing. 

Antonio. — 

i. So please my lord the Duke and «//the court* 

2. To quit the fine for one-half 'of his goods, 

3. I am content ; , so he will let me have 

4. The other half in use, to render it, 

5. Upon his death unto the gentleman 

6. That lately stole his daughter ; 

7. And that he do record a gift, 

8. Here int he court, of all he dies possessed 

9. Unto his son, Lorenzo, and his daughter. 

True, the Duke is a part of the 



OF ELOCUTION, 



*73 



court; but that hardly justifies the 
author's reading. The language means 
no more than : If it please the Duke 
and the court, hence court and not all 
is the word to emphasize. 

I should mark no word for emphasis 
in the second line, but in reading the 
line I should always take out one and 
of y since with them the line is prose, 
while without them its rhythm is per- 
fect. Neither thought nor idiom suffers 
by the omission. 

Half, in the fourth line ; stole, in the 
sixth, and record, in the seventh, are 
words I should not emphasize. If I 
fully understand what Antonio would 
say, the adverbial clause, Here in the 
court, must be emphasized in order to 
make him say it. 

Duke. — He shall do this, or else I do recant 
The pardon that I late pronounced here. 

Were I to mark this speech for em- 

124S7 11 4 



I 74 THE ESSENTIALS 

phasis, I should mark only one word — 
the first do. 

Portia. — Art thou contented, Jew ? What dost thou 

say ? 
Shylock. — 7" — am — content. 
Portia. — Clerk, draw a deed of gift. 
Shylock. — [ pray you, give me leave to go from 
hence ; 
I am not well. Send the deed after me 
And I will sign it. 
Duke. — Get thee gone, but do it. 

The what in Portia's speech is not 
emphatic ; nor does the leave in Shy- 
lock's speech seem to me to be em- 
phatic. I should read : I am — not — 
well. Then, I should emphasize after, 
sign, and do. 

This is as far as Canon Fleming- 
goes in "The Merchant of Venice," 
and here I reluctantly take leave of 
him. 



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